SR71 Lecture – Colonel Richard Graham – RAF Museum Cosford
 

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.

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?

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

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.

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:

So….How was it ?

Auditorium packed for an excellent presentation.

S

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 ? ;-)

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.

Synthetic Aperture Radar, Defensive Systems, A2, C2, H and M systems (whatever they are).

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.

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

Your 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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.