The papers contain manuals and publications relating to airplanes and spacecraft along with personal materials about McDonnell Aircraft Corporation test pilot and engineer, Gilbert B. (Bert) North. The papers are arranged alphabetically and date from 1941 to 2007. The bulk of the materials date from 1964 to 1978.

North’s aviator logbook spans a large number of years. It begins in 1957 with flights in McDonnell’s F101 aircraft, providing date, type of aircraft, aircraft serial numbers, and pilot time. The entries skip many years and in 1976 there are notes about flight student T.G. North, likely Bert’s son Thomas G. North. The final entry in the book is 2 June 2007 with a note, “I certify that Gilbert B. North private pilot…satisfactorily completed a flight review,” signed by Dale Herzberg. There are also entries for the logbook listed on four small cards within its pages.

The F-18 flight manuals, Gemini manuals, and the Mercury manual comprise the largest portion of the papers. There is one page of North’s notes concerning the 1965 Gemini manual (B1/f.5), but there are no other notes or annotations in the remaining publications. North wrote several names inside the front cover of his 1974 copy of the U.S. Navy test pilot alumni directory. The most personal items in the papers, along with the aforementioned logbook, include North’s notes on three talks that he gave in the 1950s about being a test pilot, his Acacia Fraternity membership card, his radiotelephone operator permit, and a list of flight experiences dated 1984 (B2/f.4).