What do you do when you’re flying over a sector of airspace, and hear a little game of oneupmanship taking place? First you have a Cessna requesting a groundspeed check:

Center replied: “November Charlie 175, I’m showing you at ninety knots on the ground.”

A smug twin-engined Beechcraft pilot shows off by then requesting his speed:

“Twin Beach I have you at one hundred and twenty-five knots of ground speed.”

Obviously too much for a passing Navy pilot in his F/A18 to ignore, who decides to show who’s got the biggest afterburners on the block - he smugly requests his groundspeed, ignoring the fact that his hugely expensive fighter jet can probably tell him this in 13 different languages:

“Dusty 52, Center, we have you at 620 on the ground.”

620 knots? How can our eavesdropping pilot top this? Well, he’s flying one of these, callsign Aspen 20:

SR71 Blackbird

“Aspen 20, I show you at one thousand eight hundred and forty-two knots, across the ground.”

Full transcript, which is well worth reading at The King Of Speed.

:mrgreen:

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