Is the Blackbird the fastest plane ever built?

Question

I known this craft was way ahead of its time with altitutes of more than 80,000 ft and speeds of 2,000mph. if you could built such an aircraft back in the mid 60s why haven't we done it in our modern era.

Answer 1

no it is not the fastest one ever built, and if people today built one ahead of its time then we would have an awesome plane ha

Answer 2

All good wisdom.

Depends on your definition of "plane".

The blackbird is the fastest  airbreathing manned aircraft ( that we know about)

There are unmanned scramjet types that are faster.

The X15 is  faster,manned , rocket powered , uses wings & normal control surfaces as well as reaction controls.

The shuttle is faster, but only going straight up not in true aerodynamic flight

On the way down it "flies' but as a glider .

The blackbird was way out there for the 60's.& designed for a specific need which is now being done by satellites.

No reason we couldn't build a faster aircraft & maybe there is another one out there just as secret as the blackbird was.

Answer 3

Hmmm, I think the fastest flying machine that carries people is the Space Shuttle. Imagine the trip to low earth orbit taking just 8 min 30secs. I haven't computed the speeds but I once heard that if the fuel tanks were big enough and that the distance from launch to destination wasn't so short, the Shuttle would easily hit a top speed beyond Mach 25.0 -think about that...and emm, please someone find out from NASA what the numbers are really like.

As far as I know, the Shuttle is the fastest plane ever built.

Answer 4

Depending on how you define "plane" I think the fastest is probably space shuttle, or space plane.

At one time US and Soviets had a special plane that was carried by a larger plane, that would take off from the larger plane, and fly all the way up into space.

This program was discontinued because the space shuttle was cheaper, could carry more cargo, funding got cut, so redundancy had to be dropped.

There's always secret stuff we are not allowed to know about, so I guess the fastest plane, not counting space plane, is the next secret plane that is not yet public info.

Answer 5

That depends upon if you count the X-15.  It was rocket powered, dropped from a B-52, etc.

Officially the SR-71 goes 3.5 times the speed of sound.  However, a reporter got to do a ride along and they went to Egypt and back, and according to his timings, they went faster (more like mach 4.5).  Then again, this wasn't very scientifically timed.  I know the X-15 went at least Mach 6; I want to say faster.

Answer 6

first, let me point out that mach speed varies with altitude, so it's not always a reliable indication of speed

but i digress. the fastest aircraft ever (not spacecraft like the space shuttles) is boeing's X-43, an expiremental scramjet-powered plane which has topped mach 9.8. the next fastest is the rocket-powered X-15, reaching mach 6.72 (also the fastest manned aircraft). the fastest production aircraft so far is the SR-71 blackbird (mach 3.2), though it's one-off interceptor-version prototype (YF-12) was rumored to be slightly faster. keep in mind that these are known planes and official specs, and i find it unlikely that any goverment or military would be stupid enough to give out the true top speed of their aircraft (experimental ones, in particular)

Answer 7

The SR-71 was years ahead of it's time and held world speed records for over 30 years until it was retired. Rumors abound of an even faster plane called the Aurora... by some estimates, it's capable of Mach 5 or better. Ben Rich, who took over as head of the Lockheed "Skunk Works" from the designer of the Blackbird, Kelly Johnson, once told a friend before he died that they had aircraft out in the desert that were 50 years ahead of what we could comprehend at the time. With all the vast sums of money spent on government black projects, sonic booms and possible UFO sightings....not from aliens mind you... it's highly possible, if not probable, that they've got some super secret projects with amazing capabilities. Most of their stealth aircraft and other projects flew for 10 years before the public knew of them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora_airc...

Pulse detonation wave engines are another possible hyper-sonic aircraft design that's been observed....the "donuts-on-a-rope" exhaust contrail.

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/pages/pdwe...

Answer 8

Well,The reason why the military didn't continue to make reconaissance aircraft like the U-2 and SR-71A Blackbird because they were too vulnarable to surface to air missle's.The SAM battery's kept improving for the last 40 years.Now these missle's can reach up to speeds of mach11 and its not possible to send in a reconaissance aircraft above enemy territory anymore.These fast and high flying reconaissance has been replaced by GPS/Imaging Satelite in space.