Major Brian Shul, USAF (Ret.) SR-71 Blackbird 'Speed Check'
Video from the channel Jan Johnson about Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 5:59. Language: English. Video type: News.
What it covers
A talk by retired Major Brian Shul, SR-71 Blackbird pilot, recorded at the Hiller Aviation Museum in San Carlos, California, in late 2016. Shul tells the anecdote known as the speed check with Los Angeles air traffic control, which he says started circulating online after he told it in Seattle years earlier.
Context
During one of his last training flights across the western United States, departing from and returning to Sacramento, Shul and his back-seat operator, Walter, were flying over Tucson with Los Angeles control on the frequency. A small Cessna asked for its ground speed and was given 90 knots. Then a twin-engine Beech was given 120 knots. Afterwards, a Navy F-18 out of Lemoore asked for its own, even though its cockpit already showed it, and the controller answered 620 knots. Then Walter also asked for his speed using the call sign Aspen and got a figure close to 2,000 knots. According to Shul, nobody else spoke on that frequency until the coast.
What it means
Shul presents the episode as the moment when he and Walter became a true crew. He stresses, however, that most SR-71 missions were serious, exhausting and dangerous. He links them to the end of the Cold War, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the crisis with Libya.