Speaker 1: My name is Richard Graham, retired colonel through the SR
Speaker 1: seventy one for eight years. Book I wrote on Flying
Speaker 1: the SR seventy one as available. I think you'll enjoy
Speaker 1: it takes you through a complete mission from start to finish.
Speaker 1: I enjoyed talking with Steve Gates. I look forward to
Speaker 1: the next time we can talk more about the SR
Speaker 1: seventy one. Black you're listening to the Doctor skyshaow right now.
Speaker 2: And welcome back to ladies and gentlemen to the exciting
Speaker 2: show that you tell us you like so much, The
Speaker 2: Doctor Skyshow with great guests from the realms of astronomy, space,
Speaker 2: aviation and weather. As we continue here not only on
Speaker 2: the Internet, but also on major radio stations around the
Speaker 2: nation and around the world, I'd like to first thank
Speaker 2: our producer, extraordinary Doctor Dee, the audio physician at radio
Speaker 2: station KZSB that's out of Santa Barbara, California, and to
Speaker 2: the rest of you listening to us that is on
Speaker 2: coast to coast AM and so many other outlets and
Speaker 2: KTAR in Phoenix, the home of the Doctor Sky Show,
Speaker 2: we thank you so much. A veteran aviator and a
Speaker 2: military man himself, will be speaking now with a gentleman
Speaker 2: who certainly has the experience of flying one of the
Speaker 2: most amazing aircraft of all time, the amazing Lockheed SR
Speaker 2: seventy one Blackbird. And before we introduce our special guest
Speaker 2: at the State's Air Force, Colnell Retired Richard Graham. A
Speaker 2: short introduction to the book that we'll be speaking about
Speaker 2: as an order, entitled Flying the SR seventy one Blackbird.
Speaker 2: In the content on a secret operational mission. SR seventy
Speaker 2: one Blackbird covered the distance from Los Angeles to Washington,
Speaker 2: d C. In sixty four minutes, crew's sixteen miles above
Speaker 2: the Earth surface and avoided surface to air missiles by
Speaker 2: simply out running them. For anyone who has ever wondered
Speaker 2: what it was like to fly the SR seventy one
Speaker 2: on a secret mock three reconnaissance mission, Colonel Richard H. Graham,
Speaker 2: retired as the answers now is classic detail of account.
Speaker 2: An account of piloting the legendary Blackbird is redesigned and
Speaker 2: expanded with a new introduction select photos from his personal collection.
Speaker 2: Fifteen year veteran of the SR seventy one community, including
Speaker 2: time as a pilot and instructor Graham is arguably the
Speaker 2: world's foremost expert on piloting the Blackbird. Here he walks
Speaker 2: readers through the mission details from planning to donning a
Speaker 2: pressure suit bringing the SR seventy one safely back to base.
Speaker 2: And with that, proud guests here on the radio show
Speaker 2: who's appeared before, Colonel Welcome to the Doctor Sky Show.
Speaker 1: Thank you much, Steve. Good to be back on there
Speaker 1: with you.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, Sir, we go back just so the audience knows
Speaker 2: we've known each other for quite a while, and Colonel
Speaker 2: I think the most amazing day as far as my
Speaker 2: learning about anything about the SR seventy one. I'm going
Speaker 2: back in our time tunnel. You had the opportunity, or
Speaker 2: I should say I was given the opportunity by you
Speaker 2: to meet you at love Field and actually sit in
Speaker 2: something that many people probably never had experience, that is
Speaker 2: SR seventy one simulator, and I thank you for that.
Speaker 2: But with this book, Sir, I wanted to talk about this.
Speaker 2: This is amazing. We could talk so much about the
Speaker 2: history of this particular I, along with so many people,
Speaker 2: are just enamored by this and the great genius of
Speaker 2: the skun Clerks. With Kelly Johnson and ben Rich. Talk
Speaker 2: to us a little bit about your career so people
Speaker 2: can set the stage here with this interview and understand
Speaker 2: better you're involved in with this aircraft. Came from a
Speaker 2: long time experience while flying f for phantoms in Vietnam
Speaker 2: and so forth. Tell us a little bit about your background.
Speaker 1: Background starts actually with my father. My real father died
Speaker 1: when I was two years old. He was a merchant
Speaker 1: Marine and died in the Long Island Naval Hospital. My
Speaker 1: mother remarried two years later, and fortunately for me, she
Speaker 1: married a Corsair pilot through the Corsairs, and I got
Speaker 1: order and order up to the teenage. He had his
Speaker 1: license already, so he taught my brother and I both
Speaker 1: how to fly it. I sold out at sixteen and
Speaker 1: got my license right after that, and I've been flying
Speaker 1: ever since. Came in the Air Force. It's very lucky.
Speaker 1: I stayed on as an instructor F line the T
Speaker 1: thirty seven for three years, and then I got into
Speaker 1: the F fours and that got me over to Vietnam.
Speaker 1: I did the one year stint as an F four
Speaker 1: fighter pilot in Vietnam, and then I've spent another six
Speaker 1: months back in Vietnam as a wild Weasel pilot in
Speaker 1: the F four which Wiles Weasel goes after the SAMs.
Speaker 1: And after that, I got into the SR program in
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy four flew it all the way. In nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty one, they wanted me to be the squadron commander,
Speaker 1: so I reluctantly accepted that because I knew my flying
Speaker 1: days were over. It's one of the few flying units
Speaker 1: where the squadron commander does not fly the primary airplane.
Speaker 1: There's just not enough hours to fly an SR seventy
Speaker 1: one at the cost. And it came out of that.
Speaker 1: I went to the Pentagon for four years, and when
Speaker 1: I was in the Pentagon, I made colonel and I
Speaker 1: came back to bl Air Force Base is the vice
Speaker 1: wing commander for a year, and then after that year
Speaker 1: I became the wing commander at bill and with all
Speaker 1: the assets of the U two's ESR AC one fives
Speaker 1: deal amazing story. Retired and came aboard American Airlines for
Speaker 1: thirteen years and I'll retired from that.
Speaker 2: It's a great story and we're privileging honored to have retired.
Speaker 2: United Stare Force Colonel Richard Graham talking about something that
Speaker 2: he knows so well. One of America's most amazing stories
Speaker 2: about America's spyplane and so many other people involved in
Speaker 2: the mission. You and the Rso with Don Emmons, you're
Speaker 2: naturally called I guess your name's flight names, either on
Speaker 2: the side of the airplane or just as they called
Speaker 2: you Snake and Nate. Nate, tell us a little bit
Speaker 2: about how you guys got to the Snake and Nate.
Speaker 1: I think I don't know where you got How many
Speaker 1: people know that that was our nickname. I was Snake
Speaker 1: and he was Nape, and it sort of evolved because
Speaker 1: that was my favorite ordient. I should say that my
Speaker 1: best ordinance. I like drawing it dropping it over in
Speaker 1: the Vietnam But you go like a bat out of hell,
Speaker 1: and you go. It's low and as fast you can go,
Speaker 1: and you pickle off. Nasty. It's it's not made for
Speaker 1: the sensitive people because it's a very nasty instrument that
Speaker 1: I really like dropping it down on a freelove.
Speaker 2: Wow, powerful stuff, And we could talk forever about the
Speaker 2: wonders of the F four F four phantoms forever. We
Speaker 2: collect a lot of military patches and such. But how
Speaker 2: did Don get his name his flying name Nate. What's
Speaker 2: the story behind that.
Speaker 1: Well, it just sort of became Snake and Nate Palm.
Speaker 1: He was actually the he inquired the Snake part of it,
Speaker 1: and I was the Nate part of it. And just
Speaker 1: because he does all the secretly stuff in the back
Speaker 1: and the SR. He controls all of the high resolution cameras,
Speaker 1: all the sensors, all the jammers, and so that's why
Speaker 1: he gets the snake. Nate.
Speaker 2: Wow, fascinating that stuff.
Speaker 1: We every crew that came in, we helped them with
Speaker 1: some kind of a front seater and backseater combination.
Speaker 2: Yes, well, this is an amazing kernel. I mean, going through
Speaker 2: this book, I want people to go ahead and look
Speaker 2: at getting this book again and titled flying the s
Speaker 2: R seventy one Blackbird in the Cockpit on a Secret
Speaker 2: operational Mission. And though I'd love to be talking about
Speaker 2: the history of the airplane, I believe what this book's
Speaker 2: main context is is to talk about how the aircraft
Speaker 2: when you get in it from the pressure suit side
Speaker 2: all the way to flying it. And you have so
Speaker 2: many amazing illustrations in here, and again this is you know,
Speaker 2: this is so amazing because all this is unclassified. I
Speaker 2: can only imagine what the classified stuff is because you
Speaker 2: basically give everybody from the most amazing person who loves
Speaker 2: video games, I'm sure they'd just like to jump into
Speaker 2: the cockpit. So start off if you wouldn't, or short
Speaker 2: interview to day sir, and just describe the process. I mean,
Speaker 2: you wake up at a certain time like astronauts do
Speaker 2: for their flights and pre checks and things. Describe this
Speaker 2: to us. You're told my higher command the missions about
Speaker 2: some of it, I'm sure was very secret. But let's
Speaker 2: talk about the human side of this. You get up,
Speaker 2: you get showered, you get into your pressure suit. Talk
Speaker 2: all about the importance of this pressure suit. Because this
Speaker 2: is an aircraft, right colonel, that's flying upwards of sixty
Speaker 2: five thousand feet. And I'm saying that for a reason,
Speaker 2: because you're the expert here. Once you get above that altitude,
Speaker 2: even if you have oxygen mask on, you're into a
Speaker 2: dangerous zone where the whole body want could be seemingly
Speaker 2: destroyed in a matter of seconds. Describe the pressure suit,
Speaker 2: the process of getting into it, and the necessity of
Speaker 2: making sure that everything from the ring locks on the gloves,
Speaker 2: the helmet visor is properly secured for pressure resition.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the pressure suit is your survival. If you have
Speaker 1: to echeck that anything above seventy thousand feet, you have
Speaker 1: to realize that just like water, it boils here at
Speaker 1: sea level at one hundred degrees fahrenheit, that's the boiling
Speaker 1: water you sho you go higher an altitude, the boiling pressure,
Speaker 1: the pressure of the altitude being less and less, the
Speaker 1: boiling point goes lower and lower, and the actual our
Speaker 1: body temperature of ninety eight point six degrees pharadheit starts boiling.
Speaker 1: It's seventy three thousand feet Euoretically, anything above six seventy
Speaker 1: three thousand feet, if you didn't have a pressure suit
Speaker 1: on anything, your saliva, your blood, everything would start eventually
Speaker 1: boiling off. And that's why you wear the pursure suit.
Speaker 1: So that's the main rule to save your life more
Speaker 1: than anything. It's built by David Clark, a very good suit.
Speaker 1: It's been modified many many times over the years and
Speaker 1: with a lot of more safety things put into it.
Speaker 1: I always it takes about forty five minutes. But when
Speaker 1: you get down and suit up for the in SR,
Speaker 1: you get down and get out of your plate suits
Speaker 1: and then on your long drawn underwear and slip your
Speaker 1: feet in. They zip it up the back and you
Speaker 1: lay down and put the helmet on, and then you
Speaker 1: lay in these big oversized chairs and they go through
Speaker 1: every button, zipper, everything in the whole suit to make
Speaker 1: sure it has it's the integrity that it'll save your life.
Speaker 1: And you know, you have a cooling vent where you
Speaker 1: keep cooling air all the way out, so you're until
Speaker 1: you hook onto the airplane's air conditioning and it keeps
Speaker 1: you cool the whole time. And you go out in
Speaker 1: a van has an oversized chair for both you and
Speaker 1: the back seater which is RSO Reconnaissance Systems Officer, and
Speaker 1: go out to the airplane. You climb up, get all
Speaker 1: the connections meeted to the airplane and away you go.
Speaker 2: That's amazing. And as we continue here on the Doctor
Speaker 2: Sky Show privileging on her, this is not the first
Speaker 2: time the Colonel has been on with us, and certainly
Speaker 2: not to last as far as I'm concerned. We could
Speaker 2: talk forever, and so this audience of course is getting
Speaker 2: entertained and education at the same time. Colonel, So I'm
Speaker 2: grateful for your time and your service to this great country.
Speaker 2: His book, Flying the SR seventy one Blackbird in the
Speaker 2: Cockpit on a secret operational mission, well over two hundred pages,
Speaker 2: goes into amazing detail, ladies and gentlemen, only about the
Speaker 2: instrumentation on board the co in the cockpit, I should say,
Speaker 2: basically want colonel analog. I mean we say the word again,
Speaker 2: analog days. This is before the days of having what
Speaker 2: glass cockpit capability of my rank.
Speaker 1: That's great, that's great, totally amazing. Yeah, I wrote that book.
Speaker 1: That was my third book I wrote on ESR just
Speaker 1: I wanted to take the reader on a complete mission
Speaker 1: from start to finish. Man, we go through the entire
Speaker 1: checklist from the time we get in the cockpit until
Speaker 1: we come back and land, and I think it does
Speaker 1: a justice of giving the reader a good feel of
Speaker 1: what it's like to blow ESR seventy one.
Speaker 2: And you're doing a great job, colonel. You know a
Speaker 2: little backstory on this, and it's kind of humorous to me.
Speaker 2: We're friends with Colonel Frank Murray, one of the A
Speaker 2: twelve drivers. Yes, and I'm just reading something here from
Speaker 2: your book, and I quote here the first flight a
Speaker 2: Blackbird and A twelve occurred on April to twenty sixth,
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty two, flown by Lucky test pilot Lou Shank,
Speaker 2: was a single sea blackbird flown by the CIA civilian
Speaker 2: pilots under the development program called Project and Project ox Cart.
Speaker 2: They flew sorties, as you know, out of Okinawa, Japan,
Speaker 2: of the operational code named black Shield, and they flew
Speaker 2: for a long time from May nineteen sixty seven. The
Speaker 2: program was especially terminated in May of sixty eight. They
Speaker 2: flew twenty nine sorties, twenty six over not to Vietnam
Speaker 2: and three over North Korea. Colonel this was a funny story,
Speaker 2: and I'm sure I'll get a chuckle out of you,
Speaker 2: Colonel Murray. He's just, you know, he's amazingly funny to me,
Speaker 2: and what an amazing veteran too. But he said to me,
Speaker 2: you know, Steve, he said, we had the A twelve
Speaker 2: and that was a single theater and he said, we
Speaker 2: used to call that the sport model. And then I
Speaker 2: said to him, really, and I said, well, what did
Speaker 2: you call the SR seventy one? He said, I called
Speaker 2: that the family Wagon. And I thought that was I
Speaker 2: thought that was cute, don't you thank Colonel?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I do. All of the eight twelve guys that
Speaker 1: are still alive, they come to our reunion. We have
Speaker 1: a reunion of the SR program, yes, every two years,
Speaker 1: and they generally show up.
Speaker 2: Well, let's move on in the short time we have here. Now,
Speaker 2: you're in your firstsure suit, you're all checked out. You're
Speaker 2: in the like astronauts, ladies and gentlemen. You know, you
Speaker 2: see them in the little van that goes out to
Speaker 2: the spacecraft and in this case it's amazing other worldly aircraft,
Speaker 2: the SR seventy one. So colonel describe X. You're obviously
Speaker 2: getting the cockpit, the rso's and seat tell us without
Speaker 2: revealing national security things here, I mean, what's the next thing?
Speaker 2: You go through your pre flight checklist, what are some
Speaker 2: of the things that you have to do and also
Speaker 2: including up to starting the amazing A fifty eight engines.
Speaker 1: Once you get into the cockpit, you have to realize
Speaker 1: that there's always two crews prime for the mission. There's
Speaker 1: the primary crew and what we call the backup crew.
Speaker 1: The primary crew is going to be the flyers and
Speaker 1: the backup crew. They study the day before like you
Speaker 1: do the entire mission, because if you show up the
Speaker 1: next morning you're sick or can't hack it, because you
Speaker 1: have to take a physical before every flight in the airplane.
Speaker 1: If you don't pass the physical, then the backup crew
Speaker 1: is called in to take over everything being normal while
Speaker 1: you're getting suited up. The backup crew will then leave
Speaker 1: operations and go out to the airplane and the hangar
Speaker 1: and they go through the whole checklist, all the way
Speaker 1: right up to the start engine checklist, and they make
Speaker 1: sure everything's working. And then when we crawl in the
Speaker 1: airplane with the pressure suits on, we pick up the
Speaker 1: checklist the start engines, and that's the firs thing we do.
Speaker 2: It's amazing.
Speaker 1: It didn't take too long. You're in the hangar for
Speaker 1: about fifteen minutes to the taxi out. The backup crew
Speaker 1: are in a car. They lead you out. They want
Speaker 1: to make sure there's nothing on the taxiways or runways
Speaker 1: going to blow a tire. Each of the main tires
Speaker 1: and the nose tire are four hundred psi gasius nitrogen
Speaker 1: and very high pressure, and you run over a nut
Speaker 1: or a bolt out there, it could actually cause you
Speaker 1: to have to abort the whole mission.
Speaker 2: Well, Colonel, now I go to the UMER Department here
Speaker 2: once again, and we celebrate ladies and gentlemen. This interview
Speaker 2: is being conducted here in the early portion of May
Speaker 2: twenty twenty one, and Colonel, is you no. America's first
Speaker 2: astronaut to be launched on a suborbital flight May five,
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty one was Alan Shephard. And the reason I'm
Speaker 2: mentioning that talking about suits, I'm reading this and I
Speaker 2: was like saying this on another national show that here
Speaker 2: he is getting up at whatever on godly hour, having
Speaker 2: steak and eggs for breakfast, getting into his suit, getting
Speaker 2: into the Redstone and Mercury capsule in Redstone Rocket and
Speaker 2: you may know this too. He's lying on his back.
Speaker 2: They were having a four hour hold and guess WoT Colonel.
Speaker 2: His spacesuit had no contingency for when mother Nature called,
Speaker 2: so he had urinate. And I'm saying this to a
Speaker 2: family friendly audience in the spacesuit puddling and pulling up
Speaker 2: the urin in the back of his suit. Started to
Speaker 2: get too much information, But the concern was that he
Speaker 2: would have shorted out some of the spencers. And he
Speaker 2: said after his flight, and I know you've probably known
Speaker 2: this very well, but the audience may not, Hey, guys,
Speaker 2: this rocket was built by the lowest bidder. But going
Speaker 2: back to the serious side with our special guest, colonol
Speaker 2: Richard Graham SAR seventy one pilot extraordinary, talk about the
Speaker 2: contingencies that were in your suits, because obviously you're in
Speaker 2: there for flights to how long a duration and what
Speaker 2: were the contingencies built into the suit to prevent you
Speaker 2: from having the same Alan Sheppard moment.
Speaker 1: We had what was called a UCD that stood for
Speaker 1: your Collection device, and a UCD is nothing more than
Speaker 1: a extra large, thicker rubber condom basically, and it's got
Speaker 1: bell crow. It's got bell crow on one side. When
Speaker 1: you put on your long John underwear, which is what
Speaker 1: you use inside the pressure suit, the long John underwear
Speaker 1: has a bell crow also, so you just sort of
Speaker 1: slip it on if you will, make sure it's mated,
Speaker 1: and then it goes hose and on your knee you
Speaker 1: have little valve. I've just done a little zipro one
Speaker 1: on my knee and I opened up the valve. Now
Speaker 1: it's got a free flow from where it's going to
Speaker 1: collect it all the way down into my pocket and
Speaker 1: my left leg there's a sponge down here to absorb
Speaker 1: it all up, so we walk around.
Speaker 2: That's amazing.
Speaker 1: It's all taken care of. So just that there's nothing
Speaker 1: else taking care of when we've.
Speaker 2: Met so many others do well, we've come a long way, right,
Speaker 2: Colonel's discover it first astronauts in space and how to
Speaker 2: use what you need to do when mother nature calls.
Speaker 2: But on a very serious note, now the aircraft has
Speaker 2: given clearance for going down the runway taking off. I
Speaker 2: know this. You have a point of contention with this
Speaker 2: because I read these books from and back and you're
Speaker 2: describing here how you find so many people in the
Speaker 2: immediate world, and maybe some airline pilots or people who
Speaker 2: are in the know, they talk about that theser so
Speaker 2: anyone had to take off with not even a full
Speaker 2: payload of fuel, and you have a different view of
Speaker 2: this because that's not always the case, am I right? No?
Speaker 1: The reason we just there was only one mission we
Speaker 1: flew and it flew it out of Oknawa. We call
Speaker 1: it the Rocket Ride. It's the only mission where we
Speaker 1: really took off of a full load of gas. It's
Speaker 1: eighty thousand pounds of gas. The airplane weighs sixty empty,
Speaker 1: So you've got one hundred and forty thousand pound airplane
Speaker 1: with a very high speeds going down a runway and
Speaker 1: with a heavy load. It's just not worth it. We've
Speaker 1: had back in the early days before I got into it,
Speaker 1: where they had some problems at Feel where they had
Speaker 1: an airplane where the tires blue and it became a
Speaker 1: ball of fire. The crew got out okay, but the
Speaker 1: airplane was the right off. So because of that, we
Speaker 1: take off with a partial load of fuel. Generally around
Speaker 1: you know, forty five pounds of gas. It holds eighty thousand,
Speaker 1: So you're going to hit a tanker right after takeoff
Speaker 1: wherever you go anywhere in the globe. You'll take off
Speaker 1: with a partial load, and then you'll get a refuel
Speaker 1: right after thirty minutes forty minutes to get to the tankers,
Speaker 1: and then you take on a full load of gas.
Speaker 1: And now the airplane has a maximum amount of gas
Speaker 1: eighty thousand pounds, and that'll make you go through the
Speaker 1: entire flight that you're going to be on.
Speaker 2: That's incredible. Describe this rocket ride because many people out
Speaker 2: there that are in their own pilot license routine and
Speaker 2: people who want to go out get a pilot's license.
Speaker 2: You're talking about this fastest aircraft ever that we know about.
Speaker 2: I mean, to get altitude. If you had to get
Speaker 2: up to that altitude, and I'm assuming you're talking about
Speaker 2: plus sixty five thousand feet, what's that ride like? I mean,
Speaker 2: from the human side, it must be just outrageous. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Once you come up with the Tiger, you light the
Speaker 1: affro burners. We do a little what we called a
Speaker 1: dipsy doodle where you climb up subsonic and they push
Speaker 1: the nose down. You want to go through the sound
Speaker 1: barrier on your way down. It's the most economical way
Speaker 1: to save fuel to go through it real fast because
Speaker 1: there's a big drag area around them. So we do
Speaker 1: the snipsy doodle. And then once you get to MAK one,
Speaker 1: we start going up and we just climb at four
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty knots. I'm going to say a number here.
Speaker 1: It's called keys Nazi equivalent air speed. We don't use
Speaker 1: air speed or miles prow the equivalent air speed. Yes,
Speaker 1: and we just sold a four and fifty knots all
Speaker 1: the way up. And once you get seventy thousand feet,
Speaker 1: you'll be leveling off and be guaranteed you'll be at
Speaker 1: mock Tree at that time. It's just a slow gradual
Speaker 1: increase of mock as you go up at the same time.
Speaker 2: Is right, Is there any sensation of being at I mean,
Speaker 2: if you're pushing mock three plus three plum point one, nothing,
Speaker 2: you don't feel this at any way? Shake your part.
Speaker 1: No, It's a nice, slow gradual climb and as you climb,
Speaker 1: you're accelerated at the same time, and you'll look you'll
Speaker 1: off at seventy thousand feet basically everyone because you come
Speaker 1: off the tankler with the same amount of fuel and
Speaker 1: you're gonna live off about seventy thousand, seventy one to
Speaker 1: five maybe, and you'll be at mock Tree and then
Speaker 1: from then on while you're super sonic, we always keep
Speaker 1: the airplane in about a three hundred foot per minute
Speaker 1: rate of climb all the time, whereas with most airliners,
Speaker 1: like when I flew from market, you have to be
Speaker 1: at a hard altitude. You've got to remember once you
Speaker 1: get above sixty thousand feet anywhere on this globe, we
Speaker 1: own in the entire airspace, so it's amazing. We just
Speaker 1: have a climb. If the airlines could do that, they
Speaker 1: would actually have some kind of infanteslalite maybe enter twenty
Speaker 1: feet per minute rate of climb as well.
Speaker 2: Interesting. So, from your knowledge, sir, for the latest in
Speaker 2: corporate jets, I understand a lot of the corporate aircraft
Speaker 2: can fly wid up into the high maybe low fifties.
Speaker 2: Am I correct in this? They never reached the altitude.
Speaker 1: Here exactly right. They're starting it up into the fifties,
Speaker 1: the low fifties.
Speaker 2: Totally amazing. You know, folks, this is an amazing time
Speaker 2: to celebrate not only this gentleman's service to our country
Speaker 2: but all veterans. But we're having a special conversation here,
Speaker 2: and there are always conversations. Colonel Richard H. Graham, United
Speaker 2: SAIDs Air Force, retired. He's the author of many books
Speaker 2: on this particular amazing aircraft, Kelly Johnson and Ben Ritz's
Speaker 2: story which would take up hours and certainly hopefully someday
Speaker 2: we could do that. If it's okay with you, colonel,
Speaker 2: just talk more about history. Fine, but this book talks
Speaker 2: about this and here's the title, Flying the Srsveny one
Speaker 2: Blackbird in the cockpit in a secret operational mission. So
Speaker 2: now let's talk about something that I'm so fascinated about
Speaker 2: and I hardly know obviously as much as you do
Speaker 2: on this, and the listeners are excited to hear that.
Speaker 2: The J fifty eight engine, I think from what Ben
Speaker 2: Rich did, the father of what I call the inlet technology,
Speaker 2: this is a RAM type engine. I'm using basic terms here,
Speaker 2: so at mock three point two, I'm just reading this.
Speaker 2: The J fifty eight engine, I think produces, as it
Speaker 2: says here, twenty percent thrust, but the inlet produces eighty
Speaker 2: percent thrust. And this is amazing. So in the simplest
Speaker 2: terms for us out there that just think about jet
Speaker 2: engines as being jet engines, this is a different one
Speaker 2: to JAY fifty eight.
Speaker 1: The engine. I'm going to give you a real simple analogy.
Speaker 1: I talk to a lot of audiences and they are
Speaker 1: sure they always wonder, how's how's that engine? The thirty
Speaker 1: four thousand pounds of thrust for each engine for a
Speaker 1: total of sixty eight thousand pounds of trust, those must
Speaker 1: be tremendous jets. Well, it's not the jet, it's the
Speaker 1: way it turns. It uses the spike. If you look
Speaker 1: at the SR seventy one inlet. It's got two spikes
Speaker 1: out in front. Spikes are on a retractable schedule. They're
Speaker 1: locked forward and they unlock it passing through one point
Speaker 1: I want to say, four mock they start unlocked and
Speaker 1: they start moving back ever so slowly into the inlet.
Speaker 1: And what they're doing is capturing that shockwave right at
Speaker 1: the endpoint of that the spike, and they're bringing it
Speaker 1: shockwave into the inlet. Which any airplane you've ever phone
Speaker 1: F four, T thirty eight, anything that can go supersonic,
Speaker 1: you do not want the shockwave to come into your engine.
Speaker 1: It'll flame, you're out in a heartbeat. So this shoot bike,
Speaker 1: it controls the shockwave so it doesn't get through the
Speaker 1: first stage compressors of the engine. And that's where we
Speaker 1: get the RAM effect. What I tell all audiences in
Speaker 1: a very simplistic manner, here's what's happening. If I gave
Speaker 1: you a garden hose right here on the ground, and
Speaker 1: I had no spout on the end of it, just
Speaker 1: an open garden hose, and I turned it on full speed,
Speaker 1: and I told you to put your hand over the
Speaker 1: nose of it. It would then go from about two
Speaker 1: feet in front of you, and I could squeeze it
Speaker 1: and it'll go about thirty forty feet out in front
Speaker 1: of me with a lot more velocity. Well that is
Speaker 1: exactly what's happening inside that inlet.
Speaker 2: It's amazing because I'm looking at you know.
Speaker 1: It was a very simplistic, simple, But that's water is
Speaker 1: the same thing as air. They're both mediums.
Speaker 2: So I guess insummation, it'd be something like this at
Speaker 2: mocks A three point two air enters the inlet slowing
Speaker 2: down the process or the engine thing two point six
Speaker 2: mark I'm reading, which equals pressure and temperature, and that
Speaker 2: produces energy and the RAM recovery turns it into trust.
Speaker 2: So that's where you're getting your extra effort to move
Speaker 2: the engine and move the aircraft, I should say time
Speaker 2: and space. So that whole yeah, that whole story, the
Speaker 2: J fifty eight. I mean, that's real genius to me,
Speaker 2: don't you think I mean that it's well, it's.
Speaker 1: A genius in a lot of things they've built that
Speaker 1: it's fatten with me, and it's got a unique ignition system.
Speaker 1: As you know, probably most jet engines, any jet engine
Speaker 1: I've ever flown, my life. You ignite them with igniter plugs,
Speaker 1: nothing more than a hot spark plug like we have
Speaker 1: in our cars, and most jet engines have two of
Speaker 1: them for redundancy in each engine. Well, they tried it
Speaker 1: with our fuel, which has a very high flash point,
Speaker 1: and it just drowned it out. So Kelly Johnson, who
Speaker 1: was the president of the Lackey skunk Works, he put
Speaker 1: his engineers together and said, how are we going to
Speaker 1: light this fuel off? And they came up in a
Speaker 1: very unique system. It's a liquid chemical called trithol boring EEB.
Speaker 1: We called it TEB for short. Yeah. If I had
Speaker 1: it in my hand right now in my house in
Speaker 1: a sealed squirt gun and I squirt it out of
Speaker 1: this gun right here in my house, it goes k
Speaker 1: boom when it hits the atmosphere. That was our ignition system.
Speaker 1: So a liquid chemical ignition system.
Speaker 2: Wow. Not something you want to go to a circle
Speaker 2: k and get a big gulp and put that in there.
Speaker 2: Of course, I mean that's a highly explosive to as
Speaker 2: you say, But it helps turn those Why because the
Speaker 2: turbines are so stiff To get the turn, I guess
Speaker 2: you got to get something to fire it up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, use the oil on it. When they fill it
Speaker 1: up with oil, they have to preheat the cans so
Speaker 1: it'll pour into the into the engine and it's very,
Speaker 1: very thick, and it just couldn't turn it with a
Speaker 1: volume of air. So they use Buicks. We have viewing
Speaker 1: starting carts. Two Buick Wildcat engines would put out one
Speaker 1: thousand and sixty horsepower in Tantum And they go to
Speaker 1: us driving shaft and it's some mechanical shaft that's connected
Speaker 1: right to the bottom of the airplane the J fifty
Speaker 1: eight engine, so you have a mechanical shaft rather than
Speaker 1: air like airliners do. And every other JIT.
Speaker 2: And then on your secret operational missions, which obviously many
Speaker 2: of that bits of information I'm sure classified, they have
Speaker 2: something called as asars and these are what these are
Speaker 2: sensing pods that can do everything coursing, obviously optical imagery
Speaker 2: and then some other things. That's the purpose of the
Speaker 2: secret mission obviously to find that's it.
Speaker 1: Those are the censors, the acrs, and that's it was
Speaker 1: a radar imaging system was asars. We usually get a
Speaker 1: picture down to about twelve inchure resolution by eighty thousand
Speaker 1: feet mocked three speeds. We could get real good clarity
Speaker 1: out of it with radar, so it was what are
Speaker 1: we called our all weather camera, if you will totally
Speaker 1: imagine we had, and we had two other cameras on
Speaker 1: the airplanet were even down to three venture resolution, which
Speaker 1: are actually photographed kind of images rather than radar.
Speaker 2: You know, folks, if you're wondering how fast this aircraft
Speaker 2: could fly from point A to point B, you know
Speaker 2: this because you lived it with the records and I'm
Speaker 2: just looking at this and I'm quoting this right from
Speaker 2: your book. Here New York to London one hour and
Speaker 2: fifty four minutes. But the most incredible one, I think
Speaker 2: is the Los Angeles to Washington d C. Sixty four
Speaker 2: minutes and twenty seconds. Yes, folks, I'm going to repeat that.
Speaker 2: Sixty four minutes in twenty seconds, right, colonel, beats any
Speaker 2: of your commercial airliners and puts it to shame. And
Speaker 2: the most SR seventy one flying time. And by the way,
Speaker 2: through your courtesy, I was able and grateful to get
Speaker 2: in touch with the man who has the most SR
Speaker 2: seventy one flying time, Lieutenant Colonel JT. Vita, with fourteen
Speaker 2: hundred ninety two point seven hours. He was an interesting
Speaker 2: interview too, and I want to thank you for everything
Speaker 2: that you've done sort of long learn and teach us
Speaker 2: about this most amazing aircraft. I just like I said,
Speaker 2: I hope we can do this again. Talk a little
Speaker 2: bit more about the history, but give me your from
Speaker 2: the human side. I want to ask this as how
Speaker 2: always do our guests? What do you want people to
Speaker 2: get out of this book? And then give us a
Speaker 2: little bit of information on why this program was so important?
Speaker 2: What the United States gained from the SR seventy one program.
Speaker 1: Well, the book that you're talking about, that that's one
Speaker 1: of the five I've written, but that one I wanted
Speaker 1: to I found out there was an audience out there
Speaker 1: wanted to know all the details. In fact, so it's
Speaker 1: actually the flight manual in my version, I sort of
Speaker 1: make it my dumb and down a little bits us
Speaker 1: as technical as a flight man. Yes, and so it
Speaker 1: takes you on a complete mission from starting to finish.
Speaker 1: There's an audience out there that wants to know all
Speaker 1: those little details. That's the book.
Speaker 2: Well, that's the book to get ladies and gentlemen. That
Speaker 2: concludes this exciting interview. As we continue here well over
Speaker 2: fifteen years on the Doctor Sky Show, heard locally, nationally
Speaker 2: and around the world. To this format too, our special guest,
Speaker 2: Colonel Richard H. Graham, United Say, Sir Force retired once
Speaker 2: again a book, Ladies and gentlemen, if you even the
Speaker 2: slightest bit interested in aviation, you're an existing pilot or
Speaker 2: also a military veteran of any of the armed forces,
Speaker 2: are simply just someone who wants to learn about something
Speaker 2: totally amazing. The book is entitled Flying the SR seventy
Speaker 2: one Blackbird in the Cockpit on a Secret operational Mission. Colonel,
Speaker 2: thank you, and please stay on the line as we
Speaker 2: go to the heartbreak at the bottom of the hour
Speaker 2: that concludes this edition of the Doctor Sky Show. With
Speaker 2: the help of our producer extraordinaire, Doctor d He's the
Speaker 2: audio physician himself. He does everything on the back end
Speaker 2: and as I try to do my time and my
Speaker 2: part on the front end is Radio Station AZSBAM twelve
Speaker 2: ninety and Santa Barbara, California. Doctor Sky simply reminds everyone
Speaker 2: what Colonel, always remember to keep your eyes to the skies,
Speaker 2: as every day I'm trying to earn the opportunity to
Speaker 2: be what you're navigator on the Highway to the heavens.
Speaker 2: And thank you Colonel for being our navigator on the
Speaker 2: SR seventy one Blackbird.
Speaker 1: Thank you, sir, my pleasure, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2: Steven