The Corporate Ad Campaign

Funny Story:  The year was 1975, Keith had been contacted by Womack-Claypoole Advertising agency to come down to Odessa, Texas, to discuss some art for an upcoming U.S. advertising campaign for the New-to-America Mitsubishi MU-2 aircraft.  During his discussions, he sketched the “J” and “K” Models in various scenarios and became aware of how proud Mitsubishi was of the tough airframe. ”Ferris talked the team into doing a cutaway as the final painting of the series, since they were putting so much emphasis on the airframe structure. “To create this piece, it was going to require a visit to the San Angelo factory where the MU-2 aircraft assembly took place”.  He soon found himself on the ad agency’s Mooney down to an old abandoned Air Force base in San Angelo Texas.

Keith spent the morning in the hanger with the aircraft engineers and assembly supervisors to learn as much as possible about the manufacturing and details about the airframe.  Keith photographed the entire aircraft from nose to tail along with the production line to capture all the hidden structure and details he was going to have to paint.  As he was finishing up the photography when he felt a tap on the shoulder from a pilot who was standing there and said sir, your airplane is ready.

He was presently surprised to get an opportunity to fly in the MU-2 and thought that’s nice, they are going to let me see what the airplane is like in the air. “To my surprise, demo pilot Bill Bird placed me in the left seat, informing me once I had strapped in that he had no brakes over here, nor could he start the airplane. I thought, now this is unusual, as he talked me through the startup procedure.

Ferris recounted the demo pilot having him perform some slow flight and stall recoveries. Then some 360-degree turns left and right, and a left engine shutdown for a left 360-degree turn. He talked Ferris through the air start, then back to San Angelo for some touch and goes. This was followed by a full stop landing in which Bird wanted him to stop the airplane in time to turn off at the entry taxiway. With brakes and reverse thrust, Ferris made the short turn off and taxied back to their parking spot.

“On the way back to his office, Bill said: "Well Keith, what did you think of the aircraft? Is your company ready to buy one?" To his astonishment I replied: Buy one, I’m the artist creating the ad campaign for the airplane.” Keith had been asked by so many military pilots to fly their jets that he  just shrugged his shoulder and thought, here's another challenge.”  “I don’t even have a pilots license.”