Keith Ferris: Disciplined Aviation Artist

If you have visited the Air and Space Museum on the Washington DC mall, you probably viewed the huge mural (above) of U.S. Army B-17 bombers under attack. It was painted by acclaimed aviation artist Keith Ferris (1929 - ). His Wikipedia entry is here. A series of images of his studio begins here.

There are three basic approaches to depicting the shape of an aircraft. One is to copy a photograph or use a photo as the basis and make slight adjustments to compensate for camera lens distortion of the subject. The second approach is to "eyeball" the subject, either by observing it in person or making use of reference photos so as to understand the subject's shape from differing viewpoints. This runs the greatest risk of creating an unrealistic depiction. Finally, the artist can make use of descriptive geometry to construct an image derived from two or more scaled profile of plan views of the subject airplane. Absent computer imaging software, description geometry is time-consuming, but yields proportionally accurate results (given the degree of perspective forcing used).

Keith Ferris preferred to use descriptive geometry, combining that with a good sense of composition and scene-setting.

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Dawn of a New Era - No. 504 Squadron Meteor IIIs over central London - by Frank Wootton - 1945
First, I contrast Ferris' work with that of another famous aviation artist, Frank Wootton (1911-1998). I might be wrong, but I think Wootton either never used that approach or else did so seldomly. The Gloster Meteor jet fighters in the image above do not quite seem realistic to me. This might be due to a lack of photos of them at the time he made the painting not long after the war had ended.

First of the Few - test flight of first production Spitfire - by Frank Wootton - 1980
Wootton painted this scene many years later. I need to note that most of his images were realistic views of the subject aircraft. But this Spitfire's wings seem out of proportion -- granting that "Spits" are difficult to draw properly. This is clearly a "freehand" job by Wootton.

Spitfire - by Keith Ferris
Now a Spitfire depiction by Ferris.

Spitfire workup - by Keith Ferris
It seem much more realistic because he did this workup before creating the final image.

Descriptive geometry detail of F-4 Phantom - by Wade Meyers
I include this as another example of a descriptive geometry based illustration in process.

Keith Ferris doing a workup at his drawing board
Photo from Farris' Web site showing him at work during an early stage of a project.

Farmer's Nightmare - Curtiss P-3A from Kelly Field, Texas
Ferris was the son of an Army Air Corps pilot who was stationed at Kelly Field (the main AAC training base during the 1930s). Keith would have been very young when P-3s were flown there, so this painting and the one below are more a tribute to that era than any distinct childhood memory of such planes.

Curtiss P-3As over Kelley Field

Real Trouble - Luftwaffe Focke-Wulf Fw 190 interceptors
One of many World War 2 images painted by Ferris.

Test of Courage - Fw 190 attacking a B-17
The same squadron attacking B-17s. The Fw 190 was firing at the bomber and the B-17 was spitting back 30 caliber machine gun fire from two positions, each using two such weapons. In such a situation the German fighter might have been shot down instead of the bomber.

To Little, Too Late - showing one of the few Army P-40s that got airborne during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

Russell J. Brown shooting down a MiG-15 in the first jet-to-jet air combat, 8 November, 1950

Battle of Bien How Air Base - F-100 scramble

Charles H. Hubbell: Aviation Art from Late 1940s

Charles H. Hubbell (1898-1971) was an illustrator specializing in depicting aircraft. He is probably best known for his calendar illustrations for Thompson Products, a series that lasted for around 30 years.

Biographical information on Hubbell is sparse on the Internet. Sketchy sources are here and here.

As I've probably mentioned elsewhere, possibly years ago on the 2Blowhards blog and probably here on Art Contrarian, professional aviation art tends to be torn between two approaches. One approach is to meticulously depict an aircraft, perhaps even to the point of showing rivets on the metal (if there were any on the actual airplane). This tends to please a certain breed of airplane fan who expect the illustration to show everything. The other approach tends toward somewhat painterly, somewhat impressionistic views of aircraft. Here planes are depicted correctly in terms of their dimensions and the perspective from which they are viewed. But details are more selectively chosen, usually with one area in tighter focus in the way humans actually see things. Hubbell leaned towards the latter approach, though his skill level fell short of later aviation artists such as R.G. Smith, who I mentioned here.

Below are examples of Hubbell's work. Most or all are from those calendars, and most were probably painted 1946-1949.  The first five Great War images from the 1947 calendar are those I viewed on my bedroom wall when I was young, my dad having obtained one of those calendars.

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This shows some American Army DH-4 reconnaissance bombers under attack.

Balloon busting by a Royal Flying Corps S.E.5. This was far more dangerous than it looks because observation balloons were normally heavily defended by anti-aircraft guns.

Canadian ace Billy Bishop is shown downing what looks to be an Albatross.

America's top ace Eddie Rickenbacker in action.

The final seconds of Manfred von Richtofen's life. Whether the Red Baron was shot down by a fighter or by ground fire can never be resolved, so Hubbell includes both possibilities in this illustration.

Army Air Corps P-26 "Peashooters," active in the early/mid 1930s. Theories vary, but I am convinced that unofficial nickname was due to the long, peashooter-like gunsight.

Print showing early U.S. Army P-38 fighters with markings current from around mid-1942 to mid-1943.

A 1950 image showing the XF7U-1 Cutlass Navy fighter. The prototype Cutlass was an exciting-looking aircraft (though here Hubbell makes it slightly more graceful than it was), but went through a long, troubled development.

Another 1950 illustration, this of the F-86 Sabre that was entering service about that time.  The Sabre's fuselage is subtly shaped and not easy to depict. Hubbell's version is not realistic, perhaps because he might not have had enough useful reference photos.

Aircraft Illustrator Jo Kotula

Jo Kotula (1910-1998) specialized in illustrating aircraft over a long, successful career. As best I can tell from a Google search, he seems to have done little in the way of aviation art in the form of standalone paintings, unlike the typical professional aviation artist. Kotula's work was mostly in the form of cover art for magazines along with boxtop illustrations for model airplane kits. He also did advertising and editorial art.

Almost nothing about him turned up in that search. The most detailed biographical information is here (scroll down). Another dab is included in an image below.

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One of the earliest examples I found: December 1933. Note the signature in block letters with his full name. Before long "Josef" became "Jo" and he shifted to cursive script. Shown here is a U.S. Navy dirigible and a Curtiss F9C-2 parasite fighter carried by the airship.

The signature evolves to what seems to be "Jo" while the letters are caps and lower case in this April 1936 cover. The Hawker Hurricane fighter existed only as a prototype at that point, so the combat scene here is pure conjecture.

By 1939 Kotula hit the magazine Big Time in the form of this Saturday Evening Post cover. The aircraft is fictitious, but seems to be inspired by the Douglas DC-4E experimental transport that first flew in 1938.

A cropped portion of what probably was art commissioned by the Brewster firm that built the F2A Buffalo fighter shown here on the aircraft carrier Saratoga. Kotula interprets the Buffalo as being noticeably more svelte than the tubby little beast actually was.

Poster for the U.S. Army Air Forces, probably from 1944.

Model Airplane News cover featuring a 1934-vintage Boeing P-26 fighter. Kotula has distorted the perspective slightly as to include more of the tail.

Model kit box illustration from the 1950s.

Lockheed F-94C Starfire interceptors. This has the appearance of conventional aviation art, though it might have been painted for another purpose. The aircraft strike as as being a trifle more sleek than there actually were.

Again, I'm not sure if tis was cover art or aviation art.  The plane is a 1930s Curtiss XF8C dive bomber prototype.

Advertising art from 1958.

An interesting example of an illustration in raw form. The jet transport seems to be conjectural.

Contents page fragment from the April, 1942 Popular Science Magazine with some background on Kotula.

Clip from the November, 1942 Popular Science.  During World War 2 several articles and advertisements appeared featuring prospective postwar family airplanes. I shudder to think of the aerial traffic and collisions that would have occurred if these fantasies had become commonplace.

Early Boeing 747s: March 1970 Photos

The Boeing 747, the original "jumbo jet," had its maiden flight 9 February 1969 and first flew commercially 22 January 1970. These facts and much more are detailed here in a Wikipedia entry.

Below are some photos I took in March 1970 of 747s at Paine Field, Everett, where they were built, and at Boeing Field, Seattle, where test facilities were located. A number of 747s at Paine lacked engines and paint, part of initial teething problems for Boeing and the engine maker.

Nothing special about these photos, though they might be of interest to any airplane buffs reading this blog.

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Paine Field photos

Boeing Field photos

Douglas DC-8 Interiors

I didn't fly often during the 1960s -- only 11 times by jetliner, the rest being military aircraft. Of those eleven flights, eight were on United Airlines Douglas DC-8s.

That was in the days when the U.S. government strongly regulated the airline industry -- routes for airlines were largely fixed in place, fares were high, and airlines had to compete mostly in terms of passenger service. Passengers, in turn, usually dressed up when on an airplane journey, men wearing jackets and neckties.

As can be seen below, Douglas DC-8 airlines had large windows, one per row of seats, giving passengers a fine view if a view was available. But this amenity, which provided plenty of legroom, prevented operators from increasing the number of seating rows. That "error" was soon corrected on later aircraft, as those of us who usually fly in "steerage" well know.

Below are some views of DC-8s and their accommodations.

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Eastern Air Lines DC-8 in flight
This is an early photo showing Eastern's livery at the time it started flying DC-8s. Note how large the windows are.  DC-8s had one window per side for each row of seats. This amenity prevented the addition of rows of seats that was possible for rival Boeing's 707 that had many smaller windows, a feature found on later-generation airliners.

Delta Airlines advertisement
It took several years before ramps from terminal waiting rooms to airliner doors became common. Here passengers are depicted using roll-away stairways.

Half of United Airlines advertisement spread
This seems to be featuring the first-class section.

SAS interior
Although the DC-8 was designed to seat cabin-class passengers three-abreast on each side of the center aisle, SAS had three-and-two seating on a least some of its DC-8s. So the seats shown here might be a little wider than on planes used by United Airlines and other American lines.

SAS interior
Another publicity photo of cabin-class. Note the leg room, the window curtains and ... oh yes, the snack being served.

SAS interior
I'm not sure if this is the first-class section or the three-plus-two seating arrangement. What's noteworthy in this photo is the overhead compartment. Luggage, coats and such would usually be stowed (tossed, actually) there, but here we see mostly SAS-furnished blankets, pillows and such.

Hmm. Where Did I See That Plane Before?

I visited the Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola, Florida in late April, and amongst the dazzling collection (for an airplane fanboy like me) was a Messerschmitt 262 B-1a jet from World War 2. The Wikipedia entry on the Me 262 is here. Scrolling down you will find that the two-seat B-1a variant was a trainer, and some other B-1s were used as radar-equipped night fighters. Most Me 262s were single-seat fighters or fighter-bombers.

These are two photos I took of the Aviation Museum's 262. It is nicely restored, but the fighter aspect is stressed on the information card seen in front of the plane in the upper photo. The museum's web site page for the Me 262 (here) states: "The model on display, 'White 35,' was captured in Schleswig, Germany in 1945." No mention is made of its trainer status, as best I recall.

Only a small proportion of 262s were two-seaters, and all the 262s I've seen in various museums aside from this one were single-seat planes.

Well, I did see a two-place Me 262 once. It was March, 1969 at the Willow Grove Naval Air Station in Pennsylvania. Here are photos I took then:

There is now an air museum at Willow Grove, and its web page indicating planes in the collection is here. Missing is that 262 "Red 13" (as they say in the aircraft ID trade).

So I wonder if "White 30" and "Red 13" might be the same airplane. Few were built, few survived the war, and how many fewer still were in the hands of the U.S. Navy after the war? It's entirely possible that "Red 13" was passed over to Pensacola at some point since 1969. But its also possible that the Navy indeed acquired two Me 262 B-1a aircraft. Feel free to let us know which supposition is correct.