Major Brian Shul, SR-71 pilot, Tells The Incredible ‘LA Speed Story’

It’s a “guy thing” to establish dominance in any given situation. Testosterone constantly drives us to need to be the alpha, and it permeates into much more of our daily lives than we even realize sometimes. When it comes to the ultimate expressing of manliness, there’s nothing like speed to let the other guys know who’s boss, and when it comes to speed, the SR71 Blackbird is the king and just may always hold the crown.

The video below is from one of the Blackbird’s pilots, recounting a jaunt in the standing top speed king where they jumped in on an air traffic control conversation that escalated from a speed check to a game of one-upmanship that culminated in the Blackbird establishing itself as the baddest hombre in the air that day.

To sum it up neatly, a small civilian craft radioed air traffic control for a speed check, prompting a series of increasingly-faster speed checks from other aircraft in the skies around the tower. From the first plane’s pedestrian 90 knot speed, a second plane checks in at 120 knots, thinking he’ll throw the first guy under the bus with his higher speed. However, behind the second guy comes a third, checking in with ATC with a speed that seems sure to end the proverbial pissing contest. Six hundred twenty knots. This guy is streaking through the air and nearly the speed of sound, in an F-18, a plane with an air speed indicator right there on his instrument panel. He checked in just to… that’s right… establish dominance.

Not so quick, though. There’s one more plane up there, blasting through the upper reaches of the atmosphere at nearly three times the sound barrier. The reply came from air traffic control and definitively ended all radio chatter for the day: one thousand nine hundred ninety-two knots.

Streaking by and nearly two thousand knots, the Blackbird flexed its muscle and shut down everybody beneath it, both literally and metaphorically. That, my friends, is establishing dominance in the most ridiculously badass way!