SR71 Lecture – Colonel Richard Graham – RAF Museum Cosford

[Rote 8]

Readers of this forum, especially those based in the British Midlands may be interested in a lecture that is being hosted by the Birmingham, Wolverhampton and Cosford Branch of the Royal Aeronautical Society in September (2016).

In common with most Aeronautical Society branches we host a series of lectures for 10 months of each year running from September through to June. The lectures span a range of aviation related themes, ranging from historical operations through to contemporary engineering. We are hoping that our September lecture will be something special.

On the evening of Thursday 8th September at 19:00 our guest speaker will be none other than Colonel Richard Graham USAF (Retd) who is coming all the way from Texas to give us an overview from the cockpit of the SR71 Blackbird on an operational mission. Richard has written 5 books about the SR71 and served as the Wing Commander of the USAF 9th SRW (Strategic Reconnaissance Wing). Richard will probably also be selling some signed copies of his books.

Everyone is welcome to come along to our lectures; you do not need to be a member of the Aeronautical Society. If you are not a member all that we ask is that you make a donation of £1.00 that covers some of the costs involved in putting on our lecture programme.

The lectures start at 19:00 and almost always take place in the Cold War Building at the RAF Museum at Cosford. The Museum is just a couple of minutes from junction 3 of the M54. Parking is free in the evening, meaning that you can enjoy the Cold War Museum and a first rate lecture from a SR71 pilot for just £1.00. For an additional 30p you can get a coffee beforehand. The lecture theatre is immediately beneath the Avro Vulcan. If you plan to come along it is best to plan to arrive and grab a seat by around 18:45.

The remaining lectures within our programme take place at the same time and place but fall on the third Thursday of each month, all are welcome and hopefully there will be something in the programme for everyone with an enthusiasm for aviation.

We hope to see you there.

[Old and Horrified]

Thanks for that - I've put it in my diary.
　
I have enjoyed several lectures in Cosford in the past and they have all been most enjoyable. However, John Farley's of several years ago will take some beating!
　
Do you have a link to the schedule for the rest of the season?

[Rote 8]

You are very welcome.

You should be able to access the programme for the remainder of the year from September through to June using the following link:

Royal Aeronautical Society | Event List (http://aerosociety.com/Events/Event-List?type=Branch%20Event)

If that does not work for whatever reason then just visit the RAeS website
Choose 'Events' from the menu immediately beneath the blue header bar
Select 'Branch Events'
Choose 'Birmingham' from the filter containing the text 'Select Branch'.

I hope you enjoy it, and come along to the other lectures.

[Paracab]

Many thanks Rote 8; I put this in the diary a while ago as a little birthday outing. Hope to see some of you there tomorrow. How do we identify ourselves as Ppruners? Flowers under the Vulcan I'd have thought! :ok:

[SpringHeeledJack]

So….How was it ?

[seer557]

Auditorium packed for an excellent presentation.

S

[SpringHeeledJack]

Could you flesh that out a bit for those of us who were not in attendance, or is it on a need to know basis ? ;-)

[Paracab]

A well hosted and very well attended event covering the development, deployment and eventual retirement of the SR71. I realised about halfway through that I had read one of Col Graham's books so some of the anecdotes were familiar, but still very entertaining none the less.

Interesting points for me were that the SR71 is now totally declassified apart from two 'sensors' which are still in operational use on something, somewhere and that a lot of their time was spent simply frustrating the 'bad guys' into giving away their secrets by screaming over at M 3.2 (where the aircraft was happiest) and FL800 where as you all know, nothing could touch them, so they gathered what data (I get the impression it was predominately data) and images they could and then went elsewhere rapidly! Hearing talk of putting in the burners and leaving them there for the next 80 mins in full re-heat until it was time to descend to find a tanker was fascinating; still the only afterburning engine certified to do so apparently. He spoke very highly of the tanker crews who he said never let them down and often put themselves in harms way, I guess entering dodgy wx and going across dodgy borders to get the job done.

For the duration of each mission, it was likely only 10-15 people knew they were airborne and above FL600 where nothing was in their way (U2 excepted) everything was switched off, ie VHF/UHF etc. So if they went down somewhere a little unwelcoming it was end game and they knew it. Always two crews ready for each mission in case anyone had a problem on the pre-flight medical and so on and as a crew they stuck together, no changes with driver/rear ever.

Col Graham is an excellent speaker, maybe not such an easy thing when in your seventies and will be a very hard act to follow next month. I didn't get to ask if he'd ever been lost at Mach 3 but I guess he would have said well I wasn't, but the RSO might have been so I decided not to be cheeky...

I highly recommend 'Flying the SR71 Blackbird' written by this chap. Well worth a look.

Apologies if I taught any egg sucking - just trying to give a broad overview for all.

[megan]

Interesting points for me were that the SR71 is now totally declassified apart from two 'sensors' which are still in operational useSynthetic Aperture Radar, Defensive Systems, A2, C2, H and M systems (whatever they are).

[Shaggy Sheep Driver]

Aeronautical expert I know reckons Concorde could have done the job more safely and cheaper. Only M2 and 60,000' but still high and fast enough to be untouchable.

But no need for special airfields or exotic fuels (it could operate just about anywhere). And perhaps most importantly, highly unlikely to suffer in-service losses due technical failures (lots of SR71s lost, none through enemy action).

Of course it came later than the SR71, but could have replaced it in service.

[BEagle]

Aeronautical expert I know reckons Concorde could have done the job more safely and cheaper. Only M2 and 60,000' but still high and fast enough to be untouchable.

Has your 'expert' never heard of the MiG-25?

[megan]

Aeronautical expert I know reckons Concorde could have done the job more safely and cheaperYour aeronautical expert knows squat, as an examination of the the SA-2 missile capability would show. Little known, is the fact that one SR-71 did have a piece of missile shrapnel penetrate the aircraft, to no effect, other than the holes. The Concorde would have not stood a chance against an SA-2.

[Phoenix1969]

Aeronautical expert I know reckons Concorde could have done the job more safely and cheaper

Tell you what - why not paint a few TU-144s black and bring them back into service for the SR71 replacement? Even cheaper than Concorde, and could probably carry more radar and weapons than the SR71 :D

[Shaggy Sheep Driver]

TU144 has no range. Fuel consumption makes Concorde look like it runs on fresh air.

[SpringHeeledJack]

Oh well, there goes the neighbourhood ;-) Thanks to Parecab for the correspondent's report!

[smithy2003]

May i second Parcab's view on Col Graham. Attended an excellent talk by Richard at Coventry's Midland air museum yesterday evening.
A very interesting career outside the SR71 world too

[Phoenix1969]

Attended an excellent talk by Richard at Coventry's Midland air museum yesterday evening.

Do you know if Colonel Richard Graham is on some sort of UK lecture tour? And, if yes, do you have any future dates / venues? I hope he comes somewhere near London.

[smithy2003]

Phoenix1969. I will check. I was invited to the talk thanks to a friend belonging to the local aviation history group. This particular talk was arranged ad hoc, as Col Graham was visiting the museum in the summer and happened to get talking to the owner / organiser of said aviation group. I didn't get the impression it was part of a bigger tour.

[megan]

Shaggy Sheep Driver, attached is a graph of the SA-2 capability. You can see the Concorde, or its like, would not have stood a chance. You can see the 71 at its normal operating altitude had a very brief exposure. As I alluded to previously, one aircraft (an A-12 rather than a 71 I mentioned) did receive a small piece of shrapnel when a salvo of eight missiles were fired while over North Vietnam 30 Oct 67.

[brokenlink]

This gentleman really travels a lot. Excellent presentation last night at the Cambridge branch of the RAeS on the F-4 Phantom Wild Weasel operations during the Vietnam War. Thank you sir.

[Wander00]

Apparently he did some lectures at Duxford last weekend

[treadigraph]

The SR-71 was a seriously class act. Best to everybody who made it happen...

[oldpax]

I thought Vietnam was a conflict not a war?

[megan]

I thought Vietnam was a conflict not a war?War is often known as armed conflict, and is a state of armed conflict between societies. It is generally characterized by extreme aggression, destruction, and mortality, using regular or irregular military forces. An absence of war is usually called "peace". Some parties may not recognise a conflict as a war, and is termed an "undeclared war".

[Shaggy Sheep Driver]

The SR-71 was a seriously class act.....

Not so sure about that. Have you read 'Sled Driver'? SR71 had to enter a dive to go supersonic (to overcome transonic drag), had to have one engine in 'burner when tanking, and suffered serious 'engine unstart' consequences that led to the loss of a sizeable proportion of the fleet, and to the deaths of many crews.

I consider it more a 'cobbled together by Kelly Johnson in a rush' solution to a pressing military requirement.

It did the job, but was not a 'carefree' aeroplane, as evidenced by its abysmal accident record.

[treadigraph]

20 of the 50 A-12/SR-71 airframes were lost over 25 years, a high ratio indeed, but remarkably only four crew died. One was unable to separate from his seat after ejecting, another drowned after opening his visor following ejection and a sea landing. The reasons for the losses were many; mid air collisions, landing accidents, instrumentation and wheel failures, etc - only one appears to have definitely been caused by an engine unstart.

[megan]

Nothing cobbled together about it. It pushed the technology boundaries on so many fronts. Losses,
SR-71
64-17957 Fuel cavitation
64-17965 INS platform failure
64-17966 subsonic high speed stall
64-17969 subsonic high speed stall
64-17970 Midair collision with tanker
64-17977 Wheel explosion on take off
64-17978 Landing accident
64-17974 Engine explosion, complete hydraulic failure
64-17954 Lost on runway
64-17953 Test flight
64-17952 Test flight
64-17950 Anti skid brake system evaluation
A-12
60-6926 Stall due incorrect pilot data display
60-6928 Training/test flight
60-6932 Lost off Phillipines
60-6939 Complete hydraulic failure
60-6941 Failure of D-21 drone launch
60-6929 Incorrect installation of SAS
60-6936 Fire fractured fuel line
60-6934 Landing

[porch monkey]

So SSD, after having your Concorde claim called out as complete B/S, that's what you come back with? Really? :rolleyes: Perhaps you should do some reading of your own before further comment.

[megan]

suffered serious 'engine unstart' consequences that led to the loss of a sizeable proportion of the fleet, and to the deaths of many crews.SSD has little knowledge as to the aircraft, there any number of good books available detailing the aircraft should he wish to educate himself. While unstarts were a feature of the aircrafts operation, there was only one crash and one death in which an unstart had a role to play.

That was 64-17952 on a test flight to establish, among other things, improving high Mach cruise performance by reducing trim drag. This entailed having the CoG further aft than normal to compensate for the rear ward movement of the CoP at high Mach. An unstart always produced a high pitching moment, and the pilot had to be right on top of it before the AoA exceeded a critical value where control would be lost, and be unrecoverable. Controlling the pitch rate proved not a great problem, as years of trouble free service proved. However in this particular case with an unstart, with the CoG so far aft it was not controllable, and control was lost, with the entire forebody breaking away from the main body.

The solution to reducing the trim drag was to move the CoL forward, so reducing the static margin and trim drag. This was achieved by inserting a wedge between the nose section and the forward fuselage, giving the nose a 2° tilt up.

[Vzlet]

Paracab, thanks for your recap of what's always a fascinating subject.

I'm not sure of the context of this statement:
For the duration of each mission, it was likely only 10-15 people knew they were airborne... but taken literally the number was certainly far higher than that. It took a large number of people to prepare the crew and the aircraft for flight. Tanker support was the norm, and often involved multiple refuelings. SR-71s (and the intelligence products they enabled) were valuable assets and considerable external efforts were devoted to help ensure every mission's safety and success. Two guys with their space-suited butts on the line, but a big team behind them. On the other side, frustrated bad guys in large numbers along the mission route were routinely aware of its presence. Adding those factors together, I think a good argument could be made that, on a per-flight basis, an SR-71 attracted more total attention than any other aircraft.

SSD - The "dipsy doodle" was simply the most efficient means of transiting a high-drag region 1400+ kts below the normal operational speed for which the aircraft was optimized. No shame in that!

[treadigraph]

there was only one crash and one death in which an unstart had a role to play


And the other crew member survived. I don't believe both crew members died in any of the 20 losses (think most of the A-12 crashes were pilot only test flights/missions).

[Shaggy Sheep Driver]

Not MY claim, Porch Monkey? I suggest you re-read the post.

With 2/5 of the airframes lost to 'accidents' I don't think it was quite the technical marvel one or two on here are claiming.

Furthermore, its susceptibility to engine unstarts (indicative of an unsophisticated intake design), the need for exotic fuels, the need to dive through transonic drag (inability to get through 'the sound barrier' in level flight, never mind in a climb) all point to a relatively undeveloped aeroplane.

Perhaps had Kelly Johnson had a lot more time and dollars, and no pressing deadline from his military customer, he might have got it right.

[Herod]

Perhaps had Kelly Johnson had a lot more time and dollars, and no pressing deadline from his military customer, he might have got it right.

Then it would have been "totally awesome", as opposed to just "awesome"

[megan]

SSD, you again show a lack of understanding. The unstart problem was not the result of "unsophisticated intake design" as you put it. The intake design was incredibly sophisticated, the problem was the state of the art at the time in controlling the intake parameters. This problem was later solved with the invention and adoption of digital computers to manage the parameters.the need for exotic fuelsSo what fuel do you suggest could have withstood the operating environment? Wood or coal perhaps?(inability to get through 'the sound barrier' in level flightWrong. The dive procedure was to get through the exceptionally high drag of the flight envelope in the most expeditious manner. Expeditious in this context is as quickly as possible and with the lowest fuel burn.

The accident rate is indicative of an aircraft that is operating at the very margins, mechanically, aerodynamically, technologically. That's why not everybody got handed the keys.

You best do some reading.

[treadigraph]

I recommend "Skunk Works" by Ben Rich and Leo Janos, very readable (ie, not too tech for me!) and covers development of U-2, SR-71 and F-117.

Good PPRuNe thread (http://www.pprune.org/tech-log/426900-concorde-engine-intake-thrust.html) on Concorde which also touches on SR-71 intakes and unstarts. Via a very quick skim, I got the impression that Concorde's development team greatly admired the SR-71.

I guess avoiding spilled champagne wasn't an issue Kelly Johnson had to consider for those aboard the SR-71.

A little over four years from clean sheet to airborne by a relatively small team from Lockheed and the P&W guys, followed by an almost unbroken 37 years of flying by A-12s and SR-71s is an incredible achievement. It seems military politics grounded it, not any airworthiness or age issues.

[Shaggy Sheep Driver]

I've read both 'Skunk Works' and 'Sled Driver'. Both of these books have informed my posts on here. It was a machine of amazing performance, but a flawed machine. A military compromise between performance, cost, crew safety, and time to develop.

[megan]

but a flawed machineIn what was it flawed, and how would you have overcome those flaws? Have a read of the link before offering an opinion.

Neither the "Skunk Works" or "Sled Driver" give a real insight into the aircraft. Mostly I would recommend "Lockheed Blackbird - Beyond The Secret Missions" and "SR-71 Revealed". The very best though is available on line at http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20090007797.pdf

[Phoenix1969]

The very best though is available on line at http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/ca...0090007797.pdf

Thanks a lot for posting, Megan - fascinating read.

[Wageslave]

Coal was considered as a fuel at one stage in it's development, wasn't it?

SSD, you don't sound like someone with a great knowledge of aviation if you think the SR71 "flawed". Do you have any conception of the difficulties of operating at the parameters required? Or the difficulties in engineering to achieve them? Unlike many contemporary military types it didn't have particularly unpleasant handling characteristics and many if not most of the losses were down to "engineering" rather than handling, a sign of operating continuously at the boundaries of the possible.

[Shaggy Sheep Driver]

SSD, you don't sound like someone with a great knowledge of aviation

Well, maybe you're right. Perhaps I was wearing a blindfold and ear plugs during all those decades......?

Do you have any conception of the difficulties of operating at the parameters required? Or the difficulties in engineering to achieve them?

Um, yes.

The rest of your post is more believable. It bears out what I said earlier. What's 'possible' of course, in a difficult environment, depends on the tools available.

[India Four Two]

I thought Vietnam was a conflict not a war? Definitely a war, here in Vietnam. It is called the American War, in order to distinguish it from various French wars and a plethora of revolts and wars against the Chinese, dating from 2000 years ago until as recently as 1979.