The SR-71 Blackbird was so fast it could outrun missiles—and did. Flying at Mach 3.3 and over 90,000 feet, this Cold War marvel gathered top-secret intel over hostile skies without ever firing a shot.

To round out the capabilities of the SR-71 Blackbird, designers had to make it rugged and impossibly fast. The aircraft has been flown over 15,000 miles continuously (with refueling taking place ...

Colonel Rich Graham flew the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird during the Cold War – a plane faster than any other. Here he tells BBC Future what made it so special.

The SR-71 Blackbird, (Image credit: Lockheed Martin) This is part of a SPACE.com series of articles on the Most Amazing Flying Machines Ever, the balloons, airplanes, rockets and more that got ...

A Plane Like No Other . The sleek and sinister SR-71 Blackbird looks like it belongs in a science fiction movie, though in fact the jet black spy plane proved far more successful at outrunning ...

But that doesn’t mean the Blackbird failed as a stealth plane. Indeed, the Mach-3 spy jet helped the Air Force and CIA to appreciate an important truth. Stealth alone can’t protect any plane.

In 1990, a Blackbird flew from West Coast of the United States to the East Coast in a little shy of one hour and eight minutes, hitting an average speed to 2,124.51 mph. Likewise, the aircraft had ...

So hitting Mach 5 would mean the Son of Blackbird would have to travel at an incredible 6,174km/h. For comparison, a Boeing 747 passenger jet typically reaches cruising speeds of just 885km/h.

The SR-71 Blackbird is arguably one of Lockheed Martin's most important supersonic jets, and it set a number of records in its time. Even today, it remains the fastest jet ever recorded .

The Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird is widely known as the fastest plane to ever take to the sky. It set a ground speed record of 2,193.2 mph all the way back in July of 1976. That may not even be its ...