A review from someone involved:
Gen Halloran was an original U-2 stud and then original SR-71 stud....
Chuck Norris knows the last digit of pi.
All, here MG Pat Halloran add his wonderful historical perspective.
Thanks Sir Pat!!
Chuck, thanks for resending the msg to me. . . it came through fine this time. Lots of interesting shots of cockpit controls shown that I had almost forgotten about such as the HF radio we had, The old radio compass control. . .which is all we had initially, the controls for our air sampling mission, etc. But what I enjoyed most was the cartoons.
The gent who wrote the article got it a bit wrong but since I was there when we added the cartoons I can fill everyone in. Dick Leavitt (Lt Gen) was head of the standboard and I had the U-2 branch when Gen Russell took over the wing at Del Rio. He had replaced Col Hub Zemke who was fired for having an accident with one of the RB-57's in the wing. As soon as Russell got a look at the mimeograph collection of Lockheed books we were using for a dash 1, he ordered us to immediately build an AF Spec Flight Handbook. It was obviously quite a task as we worked closely with the Skunk Works and the LAC test pilots to rewrite the whole damned thing. Fred White, at Lockheed, was their official handbook guy and he got it published. The idea for the cartoons came from us, in the standboard. We found a gifted artist somewhere in the unit, showed him the style of humanizing planes which we had seen elsewhere, told him what we wanted for each section, and turned him loose. You will note that each cartoon depicts one of the standard sections used for almost all flight handbooks. There was Description, Normal Procedures, Emergency Procedures, Operation of Auxiliary Equipment, Operating Limitations, Flight Characteristics, Systems Operation and All Weather Operations. A couple of those sections might be unique to the U Bird. I think there is still one of the original handbooks in one of the filing cabinets in Intel, at Beale and it will have all the divider pages in it. I had asked for copies to be made several years ago which were sent to me. I don't think the Agency ever saw those cartoons as they were well into their operations before the book was finished. Those cartoons could make a great artistic addition to the hallways of the squadron.
We had a guy in my first fleet squadron who use to work at a 6-Flags as a cartoonist.
He always put a few drawings on the squadron briefing boards and populated our cruise books with a few. Always interesting!