WHY YOU DON’T MEASURE YOURSELF AGAINST THE FASTEST JET IN THE WORLD
“I will always remember one particular radio exchange, from the day when Walt (my navigator) and I were circling at 13 miles (about 21 km!) over Southern California. We listened in on various transmissions from other aircraft as we entered Los Angeles airspace. Center there usually doesn’t talk to us, but they have us on their scope. I heard a Cessna call Center and ask for a readout of its ground speed.
“90 knots (166 km/h) over the ground,” Center answered.
Moments later a Twin Beech (a twin-engine passenger aircraft) asked for the same thing.
“We read 120 knots (222 km/h),” Center answered.
We were not the only ones proud of our speed that day, because almost at once an F-18 pilot came on the radio, smooth as oil: “Ah, Center, Dusty 52 requests a ground speed readout.” I was already thinking to myself: hold on a minute, doesn’t the F-18 have a ground speed readout in its head-up display?
There was a short pause, then the answer from Center: “525 knots (972 km/h) over the ground, Dusty.”
Another silent pause. There was not one aircraft that wanted to brag about its speed now. While I was thinking about how ripe this situation was, I heard the familiar click of a transmission coming from my navigator. That was the exact moment I understood that Walt and I had become a real crew, because we were both thinking the same thing: “Center, Aspen 30, do you have a ground speed for us?”
There was a longer pause than usual… “Aspen… I read 1,742 knots (3,226 km/h).” I knew Walter and I would get along when he radioed back: “Center, we’re showing something closer to 2,000 knots.”
After that we didn’t hear a single transmission on the frequency again.”
- Maj. (ret.) Brian Shul, former pilot of the Lockheed SR-71 “Blackbird”
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