This along with the Stainless Steel Rat reference reaffirms Lucas's approach to developing ideas and visual starting points, by trawling every science fiction book and magazine he could get his hands on. He clearly had something very specific in mind since the note is right next to that drawing (and so the sci-fi book cover trawling begins anew). He also wrote “see book cover”, although we have no idea which book is referring to.
An ironic decision as we'll see later, when outside influence forced him to change his mind back. What this piece of yellow paper tells us, is that the Rebel Blockade Runner and the Pirate Ship were concurrent, but that Lucas seemed in two minds regarding which one was supposed to have the "longish" design he had found. First it was the Blockade Runner, but then right after he seems to have changed his mind to the Pirate Ship. The original Star Wars story went through a lot of changes as Lucas worked out its kinks, turning it from a hot mess into the story that became the final film (a process which continued throughout production, and arguably to this day), and those continuing changes makes it hard at times to know when what occurred. Yes, that is literally what it says! Moreover, it lists “ Stainless Steel Rat”, which is now our verified inspiration for the TIE Fighter! The drawing seems to depict (abstractly) the cockpit of a ‘ TBF Avenger’ torpedo bomber, indicating the positions of the people, with the circle on the right being the rear-facing gun turret and idea which might have become Episode V's Snow Speeder. RF-3 (WWII Torpedo Fighter) colon design. RF-2 (Stingray) never made it, but it is circular, so maybe it shows the saucer shape already on Lucas's mind? RF-1 (Dart) now you know what inspired the X-Wing (a name Colin Cantwell came up with) It is too much to unpack in this Falcon-centric piece without going off the rails, but since this is the first time I get to address it, here are a few notes:
It's a list of ships for Cantwell to begin work on, which given that Cantwell was the first creative hire, makes this the earliest conceptual artwork for Star Wars, and therefore the holy grail for nerdy space fantasy historians. Yes, this is from the hand of George Lucas on his characteristic yellow legal pad.
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