He was one of six pilots who volunteered to learn the technique of snatching fully loaded troop gliders off the ground, and spent the end of World War II ferrying gasoline in cargo planes to Gen. George Patton's command in Germany.

[3] Very early on April 12, 1961, John G. Warner, a UPI rewrite-man in Washington, D.C., roused Powers from sleep at Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia seeking comment on the flight of Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, the first person in space.

[4] In his 1979 book The Right Stuff, Tom Wolfe wrote that Powers had borrowed it "from NASA engineers who used it during radio transmission tests because the sharper sound of A cut through the static better than O".

[6] Manned Spacecraft Center Director Robert Gilruth announced Powers' reassignment on July 26, 1963, reportedly following a dispute with NASA Headquarters over handling publicity for the final Mercury flight.

He became part owner of KMSC-FM in Clear Lake, Texas (the call letters standing for the Manned Spacecraft Center), where he anchored live coverage of Gemini and Apollo flights, distributed to radio stations across the country.

He also served a spokesman for products including the 1965 Oldsmobile Delta 88 (touting its "Super Rocket V-8" engine), Carrier air conditioners, Triptone motion sickness pills, and Tareyton cigarettes (which claimed to use the same charcoal-activated filter used for the astronauts' oxygen supply).

He is referenced in the 1988 cult film, Miracle Mile, by actor Kurt Fuller when, as Soviet warheads appear over Los Angeles, a drug-addled, panicked character in the movie yells, "Talk me down, Shorty Powers".