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. |
Interesting points for me were that the SR71 is now totally declassified apart from two 'sensors' which are still in operational use |
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. |
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. |
Aeronautical expert I know reckons Concorde could have done the job more safely and cheaper |
Aeronautical expert I know reckons Concorde could have done the job more safely and cheaper |
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 |
Attended an excellent talk by Richard at Coventry's Midland air museum yesterday evening. |
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.
|
1 Attachment(s)
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.
|
Apparently he did some lectures at Duxford last weekend
|
The SR-71 was a seriously class act. Best to everybody who made it happen...
|
I thought Vietnam was a conflict not a war?
|
I thought Vietnam was a conflict not a war? |
The SR-71 was a seriously class act..... 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. |
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.
|
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 |
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.
|
suffered serious 'engine unstart' consequences that led to the loss of a sizeable proportion of the fleet, and to the deaths of many crews. 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. |
"...only 10-15 people..."?
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... 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! |
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). |
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. |
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. |
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 fuels (inability to get through 'the sound barrier' in level flight 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. |
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 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. |
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.
|
but a flawed machine 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/ca...0090007797.pdf |
|
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. |
SSD, you don't sound like someone with a great knowledge of aviation Do you have any conception of the difficulties of operating at the parameters required? Or the difficulties in engineering to achieve them? 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. |
All times are GMT. The time now is 03:16. |
Copyright © 2024 MH Sub I, LLC dba Internet Brands. All rights reserved. Use of this site indicates your consent to the Terms of Use.