Old plane was faster than a speeding bullet

Fact. The word's fastest and highest flying airplane, the US Air Force's SR-71 first flew in 1964, and hasn't been matched since! It was clocked at 2,193.167 mph ... that's 3 miles every five seconds and more than 3 times the speed of sound. The muzzle velocity of a Dirty Harry's .44 magnum is only 971 miles per hour. No only the fastest, it flew higher than any other airplane ... over 16 miles up.


Cost to coast in just over an hour? Did it in 1 hour 7 minutes. New York to London in under two hours? How about 1 hour 54 minutes ... including a "stop" for air-refueling.

These performances are still remarkable today; no modern airplane can match them. What's really amazing is that they were accomplished by an airplane designed before the Vietnam War had even begun, the Beatles had just become popular and color TV was still a novelty.

PB