The “LA Speed Check”: A Story From a Pilot of the Fastest Plane in the World

This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories, and we tell stories about everything here on this show. And some of our favorite stories are about the men and women who serve our nation in uniform. Throughout its nearly twenty-four-year career, the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird spy plane remained the world’s fastest and highest-flying operational aircraft. From eighty thousand feet, it could serve a one hundred thousand square miles of Earth’s surface in a mere hour. SR-71 pilot Brian Schule recalls in his book, Fledgdriver: Flying the World’s Fastest Jet, “There are a lot of things we couldn’t do in an SR-71, but we were the fastest guys on the block and loved reminding our fellow aviators of this fact.” Here’s Major Shool with his legendary story, known today as the LA Speed Check.

It’s called the LA Speed Story, and it was just a story about one day. It was really cool being SR-71. Pound, Walter and I were doing a training mission around the United States where you just were building up hours in time, and we take off that Beale, hit a tanker in Idaho, rip on up to Montana, zip across Denver, hang a right turn in Albuquerque, out over Los Angeles, up to Seattle, back into Sacramento. Two hours, twenty-one minutes. And you just do that, and then you do it backwards and you hit a tanker, too. It’s just just to gain crew coordination. Get bill your hours. We’re on our last training mission. We’re over Tucson. I can see downtown LA from Tucson. We’re at eighty-nine thousand feet. I can see the whole Western United States bathed in a warm October fall glow. I can see the chain of Rocky Mountains from Canada to New Mexico. I could just see the most beautiful picture laid at my feet in the air, as smooth as glass. Not a gay moving in the cockpit. It was perfect. Now I’m thinking, “We bad.” Now, I feel sorry for Walter because he has to monitor five radios in the backseat. So I flipped the switch up just to listen. And LA Center is controlling. They control all when you fly Southwest Air. They’re the guys controlling everybody. But we’re above controlled their space, so they have us on their scope, but they’re not talking to us. Now, there are controllers all over the country: Jacksonville Center, Chicago Center, Seattle Center. You know it’s the same guy. They all talk the same, and it’s really cool the way they talk because they make you feel important as a pilot. They don’t just say, “Yeah, okay, here’s your thing.” They make you feel really cool. So, sure enough, this was pre-GPS day. Some SASNA guy has to know his ground speed. LA Center: “SASNA November tangle off, you got a ground speed readout for us?” Now, Center would like to say, “Who cares? Get a free!” But no, he’ll talk to him like he’s John Glenn. “That’s November Eight, we’ll show you ninety-nine. It’s nice zero knots on the ground.” And they do that sing-song. Boy, that’s how they talk, and it makes you feel kind of cool. Right after that, a Twin Bonanza came up to pimp the guy for speed, I guess. And a Center Twin Beech, whatever. “You got a ground speed right for us?” And Center’s like, “Seacats Friday, why me, God? Please just get off free!” But he’s gonna talk to him like he’s Air Force One. “Twin Beech, shall we show you one-twenty-one, two’s zero knots on the ground.” And right after that, a Navy F-18 out of Lemoore popped up on frequency, and you knew it was a Navy guy because he talked really slick on the radio: “Center, Dusty Five-Two-Two, speed check!” And I’m thinking, “Wait a minute, Dusty Five-Two-Two is a ground speed indicator and had million-dollar F-18 cockpits right there and the heads-up display! Why is he calling Center to broadcast his speed?” I get it. We had just the meanest, baddest, fastest military jet in the valley. We’re taking our little horna jet over Mount Whitney and ripping across Death Valley, and we want everyone from Fresno to the coast to know what real speed is. And you could almost hear a little glee in the controller’s voice, like, “We have put an end to this!” “Dusty Five-Two-Two, we show you six-twenty-six, two’s zero knots across the ground.” And it was that “across the ground”—see that little knife-like “I hope nobody else has the nerve to get on Freak now”? And there wasn’t an airliner from Seattle to San Diego that wanted to be next on Freak. It’s sort of an etiquette thing amongst flyers, and a twelve-year-old was reaching for the mic. But, and I thought, “Oh no, wait! Walter’s in charge of the radios!” I flew single-seat all those years. But I’m in the family model now, and I want it. “No, it’s a Navy that must die now. They must die now.” And I thought, “No, but if I do upset Walter, and I want us to be a good crew…” And at that moment, I heard a click of the mic in the backseat. Ladies and gentlemen, Walter and I became a crew. At that moment, his best innocent voice: “LA Center, Aspen Three-Zero, have you got a ground speed? Right off four US?” You could almost hear a collective gasp on Freak, like, “All the poor fools didn’t hear the previous transmissions!” Oh, it, it’s just a pilot thing. But Center had to give you that same voice: “Aspen Three-Zero, we show you one-niner-niner-two knots across the ground.” What I know is going to like Walter a lot, is when he came back, said, “Center, we’re showing a little closer to two thousand, ladies and gentlemen!” We did not hear another transmission on that frequency all the way to the coast. The King of Speed lived, the Navy had been flamed, and a crew had been formed for just a moment. It was absolutely fun being the fastest guys on the block.

And you’ve been listening to Major Brian Schule, his story of the SR-71 Blackbird doing a little speed check to show off just a little bit. By the way, a little about Schule. He flew two hundred and twelve combat missions and was shot down near the end of the Vietnam War. Unable to eject, he was forced to ride the plane into the jungle. He was rescued by Army Special Forces and was so badly burned that he was given next to no chance to live. Bryan spent a full year in the military hospital, where he underwent fifteen medical procedures and was told he would never fly again. Bryan miraculously returned to full flight status, flying the A-7, then the A-10, and went on to be an instructor at the Air Force’s Top Gun school. By the way, he’s a real-life people, folks. Real-life people. His career culminated in flying the SR-71 Blackbird. Brian was the pilot who provided President Ronald Reagan with detailed photos of the Libyan terrorist camps in nineteen eighty-six. Major Brian Schules SR-71 Blackbird’s story, “The LA Speed Check,” here on Our American Stories. Liehabib here, and I’d like to encourage you to subscribe to Our American Stories on Apple Podcasts, the iHeartRadio app, Spotify, or wherever you get our podcasts. Any story you missed or want to hear again can be found there daily again. Please subscribe to the Our American Stories podcast on Apple Podcasts, the iHeartRadio app, or anywhere you get your podcasts. It helps us keep these great American stories coming.