Colonel Richard Graham (USAF Retired) will be making a welcome return to Imperial War Museum Duxford on Sunday 20 March. At 11.00am, Colonel Graham will host a brand new talk in the Marshall Auditorium in AirSpace.
Colonel Graham will talk about his experiences flying civilian and military aircraft, comparing the Cessna 172, Cessna T-37, Lockheed T-33, the Northrop T-38 Talon, the McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom, the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird, the Lockheed U-2, the Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker and the McDonnell Douglas MD-80.
Following the lecture, Colonel Graham will take questions and will sign books.
At 2.00pm, Colonel Graham will host a walk-around tour of the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird that he previously flew from RAF Mildenhall, which now sits in pride of place in the American Air Museum.
Following the tour, there will be the opportunity for book signings and for Colonel Graham to answer your questions.
Both events are on Sunday 20 March and are included in the standard admission price to Imperial War Museum Duxford.
The Marshall Auditorium has a maximum capacity of 200. Entry to the lecture is on a first-come, first-served basis.
The walk-around tour can be joined on a first-come, first-served basis. However, for maximum enjoyment of the tour, we advise a maximum of 50 attenders.
Colonel Richard Graham entered the United States Air Force in November 1964 as a graduate of the University of Akron.
He was a command pilot and flew over 46,000 flight hours in the Lockheed T-33, Cessna T-37, NorthropT-38 Talon, the McDonnell Douglas F-4 C/D Phantom II, Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird, Lockheed U-2 and Boeing KC-135Q Stratotanker.
A Vietnam veteran, he flew 205 combat missions over North Vietnam and Laos in the McDonnell Douglas F-4 C/D Phantom II.
He flew all models of the Lockeheed SR-71 for over seven years, accumulating 765 hours in the Blackbird. Colonel Graham commanded the SR-71 Squadron and the 9th Reconnaissance Wing at Beale Air Force Base, California.
He held key positions in the Pentagon and on the staff of the Secretary of the United States Air Force. Retiring from the Air Force in October 1989 he joined American Airlines where he flew on the Boeing 727, McDonnell Douglas DC-10 and retired as a captain on the McDonnell Douglas MD-80 with over 7,500 flying hours to his name.
Colonel Graham has written three books on the SR-71 – “SR-71 Revealed, The Inside Story”; “SR-71 Blackbird: Stories, Tales and Legends” and “Flying the SR-71 Blackbird.”
Colonel Graham speaks in the Distinguished Lecturers Program for the American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA). He was the 1999 recipient of the University of Nebraska’s William F Shea Award for his “distinguished contribution to aviation.”
He currently lives in Plano, Texas and is busy as a speaker, author, aviation consultant and instructor pilot. He is a member of EAA Chapter 1246 in McKinney, Texas and flies with the Civil Air Patrol as a mission and check pilot.
IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUM DUXFORD
Established at the end of the First World War to train the newly formed RAF’s pilots, Imperial War Museum Duxford is Europe’s premier aviation museum, with many original period buildings such as the Control Tower and hangars still in use, alongside state-of the-art, award-winning exhibition buildings including AirSpace and the American Air Museum. Two hundred aircraft are on display, whilst over 50 historic flying aircraft, based at the airfield, regularly take to the sky. Duxford also has one of the finest collections of tanks, military vehicles and artillery in the UK.
www.iwm.org.uk/duxford