The Baddest Airplane Ever

The SR-71 Blackbird, I saw one at the St Louis airport a few years back while we taxied to our gate and it looks as bad as it is with its sleek design and massive engines. Anyway this is a cool story by a former Air Force pilot, Major Brian Shul, about a recon mission over Libya after Reagan bombed them flying at mach 3.5 at 80,000 feet, via Ace of Spades.

In April 1986, following an attack on American soldiers in a Berlin disco, President Reagan ordered the bombing of Muammar Qaddafi's terrorist camps in Libya. My duty was to fly over Libya and take photos recording the damage our F-111's had inflicted. Qaddafi had established a 'line of death,' a territorial marking across the Gulf of Sidra, swearing to shoot down any intruder that crossed the boundary. On the morning of April 15, I rocketed past the line at 2,125 mph.

I was piloting the SR-71 spy plane, the world's fastest jet, accompanied by Maj Walter Watson, the aircraft's reconnaissance systems officer (RSO). We had crossed into Libya and were approaching our final turn over the bleak desert landscape when Walter informed me that he was receiving missile launch signals. I quickly increased our speed, calculating the time it would take for the weapons-most likely SA-2 and SA-4 surface-to-air missiles capable of Mach 5 - to reach our altitude. I estimated that we could beat the rocket-powered missiles to the turn and stayed our course, betting our lives on the plane's performance.

Flying that plane must have been an incredible thrill, LA to DC in less than an hour at less than 2 seconds per mile, simply awesome.