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Comment by jluxenberg | Hacker News Reader

Neat anecdote about the SR-71's speed from a former pilot http://www.jumbojoke.com/the_king_of_speed.html

(couldn't find a better link; this is an excerpt from Sled Driver: Flying the World's Fastest Jet by Brian Schul)

You'd also probably like this speed story from (I think) the same guy: http://www.planeandpilotmag.com/speed-is-life.html

Even more fun when you listen to it: http://soundcloud.com/torrenegra/the-king-of-speed-sr-71

(This is one of my favorite stories ever. As such, I couldn't resist to get a professional voice to record it. I have tried to contact Brian Schul to transfer the ownership of the recording to him, but I have not been able to get a reply from him)

Awesome narration! Blackbird stories are always great. There is one of a Blackbird taking damage assesment photographs of Libya in 1986. There they were outrunning a SAM missile, the pilot said that its probably the time that the Blackbird was pushed to fly the fastest....

Wow, thank you for this - one of my favourite stories too. This is worthy of its own post in my opinion (Reddit would probably love it, too)

Edit: How much did it cost to get this done, and is the same voice actor still available? He did a really good job of capturing the ATC tone! I'd love to hear more sled stories read by him.

$70 or so in VoiceBunny.com. Disclaimer: I'm it's co-founder.

Is it possible to request the same voice actor that did the one you linked?

Two other stories mentioned among the comments on reddit:

http://www.barthworks.com/aviation/sr71breakup.htm

http://tailspinstales.blogspot.se/2010/01/slowest-blackbird....

There is a great podcast featuring an hour long interview with an SR71 pilot and author

http://omegataupodcast.net/2012/03/91-flying-the-sr-71/

And take a look at the other omegatau podcasts if you like geeky, if you speak German there are even more

I've read a lot of the Blackbird stories, and that first one might be the best yet.

Thanks!

Damn, that's an expensive test flight.

ooo ooo ooo, any more stories by that chap?

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