{"id":337,"date":"2012-02-21T22:29:00","date_gmt":"2012-02-21T22:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.airscene.co.uk\/news\/?p=337"},"modified":"2012-02-21T22:29:21","modified_gmt":"2012-02-21T22:29:21","slug":"colonel-richard-graham-discusses-the-sr-71-blackbird","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.airscene.co.uk\/news\/aviation-news-uk\/aviation-museum-news\/colonel-richard-graham-discusses-the-sr-71-blackbird\/","title":{"rendered":"Colonel Richard Graham discusses the SR-71 Blackbird"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Former SR-71 Blackbird pilot Colonel Richard Graham (USAF Retired) will be making a welcome return to IWM Duxford on Sunday 11 March 2012.<\/p>\n<p>Always a very popular speaker at IWM Duxford, Colonel Graham will be giving an overview of the SR-71 Blackbird programme at 11am in the Marshall Auditorium in AirSpace.<\/p>\n<p>This talk will be followed by an extended question and answer session, where Colonel Graham will chat with his audience.<\/p>\n<p>At 2pm, Colonel Graham will be hosting walk-around tours of the SR-71 Blackbird that he previously flew at RAF Mildenhall, which now sits in pride of place on display in the American Air Museum.<\/p>\n<p>Following the tour, there will be an opportunity for book signings and to ask more questions.<\/p>\n<p>The SR-71 Blackbird is regarded as one of the United States Air Force&#8217;s most important Cold War-era aircraft. It was classified as top secret for most of its operational life, flying covert missions from RAF Mildenhall from the mid-1970s onwards. The aircraft played an important role in military conflicts for nearly thirty years, being superceded only when spy satellites came into operation.<\/p>\n<p>Colonel Richard Graham&#8217;s involvement with the Blackbird continued until his retirement from the United States Air Force in 1989 as a highly-decorated pilot with more than 4,000 hours of military flying experience.<\/p>\n<p>Colonel Graham&#8217;s talks are always incredibly popular. Both events on Sunday 11 March are included in standard admission to the museum and, as usual, children aged 15 and under go free.<\/p>\n<p>The Marshall Auditorium has a maximum capacity of 200. Entry to Colonel Graham&#8217;s talk is on a first-come, first-served basis.<\/p>\n<p>The walk-around tour can also be joined on a first-come, first-served basis.<\/p>\n<p>Join us to hear about the thrill and excitement of flying the SR-71 Blackbird as Colonel Richard Graham enthralls his audience with tales about this iconic and enigmatic aircraft.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.iwm.org.uk\" target=\"_blank\">www.iwm.org.uk<\/a><br \/>\n<!-- AddThis Button BEGIN --><br \/>\n<a class=\"addthis_button\" href=\"http:\/\/www.addthis.com\/bookmark.php?v=250&amp;username=airscene\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"border:0\" src=\"http:\/\/s7.addthis.com\/static\/btn\/v2\/lg-share-en.gif\" alt=\"Bookmark and Share\" width=\"125\" height=\"16\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Former SR-71 Blackbird pilot Colonel Richard Graham (USAF Retired) will be making a welcome return to IWM Duxford on Sunday 11 March 2012. Always a very popular speaker at IWM Duxford, Colonel Graham will be giving an overview of the SR-71 Blackbird programme at 11am in the Marshall Auditorium in AirSpace. This talk will be &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.airscene.co.uk\/news\/aviation-news-uk\/aviation-museum-news\/colonel-richard-graham-discusses-the-sr-71-blackbird\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Colonel Richard Graham discusses the SR-71 Blackbird<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[88,12,58,75,16,10,76],"class_list":["post-337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aviation-museum-news","tag-88","tag-duxford","tag-february","tag-imperial","tag-museum","tag-news","tag-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.airscene.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.airscene.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.airscene.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.airscene.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.airscene.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=337"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.airscene.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.airscene.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.airscene.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.airscene.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}