It may be the most retold radio exchange in aviation. A Cessna asks Los Angeles Center for its ground speed. So does a Beechcraft, and then a Navy F/A-18. Then a voice from far above them all asks the same question, and the controller reads out a number nobody else on the frequency can match.
The story comes from Brian Shul, who flew the SR-71 Blackbird in the 1980s. He told it in his book Sled Driver in 1991 and then to audiences across America for three decades, until his death in 2023. It is going round social media again. Here is the story as Shul told it, how its numbers changed along the way, and what can and cannot be checked.
Quick Facts
- Told by: Maj. Brian Shul, USAF, SR-71 pilot
- Back seat: Maj. Walter L. Watson Jr., reconnaissance systems officer (RSO)
- Call sign: Aspen 20
- Controller: Los Angeles Air Route Traffic Control Center (“LA Center”)
- Speed read out: 1,842 knots in the best-known version, about 2,120 mph or 3,410 km/h
- In print: Sled Driver (1991) and countless later talks
- Date: Never published; no recording or transcript has ever surfaced
The Story as Shul Told It
In Shul’s expanded telling, he and Watson were on the last sortie of their SR-71 training. They needed 100 hours in the jet to reach Mission Ready status, and somewhere over Colorado they passed the mark. Turning over Arizona, they were listening to Los Angeles Center.
First a Cessna asked for a ground speed readout and was given 90 knots. A twin-engine Beechcraft asked next and got 125. Then a Navy F/A-18, call sign “Dusty 52”, out of NAS Lemoore, asked too and was told 620 knots. Shul badly wanted to join in, but in the SR-71 the radios were the back-seater’s job. Before he could say anything, he heard Watson key the microphone.
“Los Angeles Center, Aspen 20, can you give us a ground speed check?” Watson asked. The controller came back with one thousand eight hundred and forty-two knots, across the ground. Watson replied that they were showing “closer to nineteen hundred on the money”, and the controller conceded that the Blackbird’s equipment was probably more accurate than his. In Shul’s words, they “never heard another transmission on that frequency all the way to the coast.”
For Shul, the speed was not really the point. The point was that Watson had made the call without being asked.
The Viral Version Is a Fair Summary
The Instagram caption now circulating follows Shul’s expanded telling closely: the final training sortie, the 100 hours, the Southwest, LA Center, the Cessna, the second civil aircraft, the Navy F-18, Watson’s call from the back seat, the reply about the more accurate equipment, the silence all the way to the coast, and the moment they became a crew. As a summary of what Shul said, it is accurate. What it cannot tell you is whether Shul’s account is accurate.
The Numbers Changed With Each Telling
There is more than one version of the story. A shorter text, also credited to Sled Driver and widely reprinted, has the controller reading out 1,742 knots, the Hornet doing 525 rather than 620 and the Beechcraft 120 rather than 125. In that version Watson never speaks: Shul only hears the click of his microphone. In the expanded version, the source of the viral caption, the figure is 1,842 knots and Watson does the talking.
Retellings have moved the numbers further. One magazine version has “Aspen 30 heavy” at 1,942 knots and “closer to 2,000”. Obituaries in 2023 printed 1,492 knots and 1,992 knots, the second later corrected. The altitude is inconsistent even within Shul’s own text, which mentions both 80,000 feet and “13 miles” above Arizona, which is about 68,600 feet.
The best-known figure is plausible for the jet. 1,842 knots is about 2,120 mph or 3,410 km/h. The speed of sound at 75,000 to 80,000 feet is around 575 knots, so that is roughly Mach 3.2, comfortably within the SR-71’s normal cruise. Ground speed also includes the wind, so it is not a precise Mach number.
Did It Really Happen?
Nobody has ever published an air traffic control tape, a transcript, a logbook entry or even a date. Every version of the story leads back to Shul himself. Even a fan site that hosts the full text invites readers to decide how much is fact and how much is just a great story.
When Shul died in May 2023, The Aviationist noted that some people dismiss the story as made up. It also quoted Otto Pernotto, a friend of Shul’s, who said Shul had told him about it right after it happened.
The fair conclusion is somewhere in between. The differing versions show that the story grew in the retelling, as good stories do. But nobody has shown that the exchange was invented, and nothing in it is technically far-fetched. If it happened as described, it would have been after Shul joined the SR-71 programme in 1983 and before April 1986, when he and Watson flew the Blackbird over Libya as an operational crew.
Walt Watson, the Voice From the Back Seat
The man who made the call was Walter L. Watson Jr., from Columbia, South Carolina. He studied mechanical engineering at Howard University and was commissioned through ROTC. As a C-130E navigator in Southeast Asia he flew in the evacuation of Saigon and the Mayaguez rescue, and he later served in F-4, F-111D and SR-71 squadrons. He is recognised as the first, and only, African American to qualify as an SR-71 crew member. He later co-wrote The Untouchables with Shul and retired as a colonel.
Shul, born in 1948, had flown 212 combat missions in Vietnam and survived being shot down and badly burned before he talked his way into the SR-71 programme. He retired in 1990 and died on 20 May 2023 in Reno, Nevada, aged 75, shortly after giving one of his talks. We tell his full story in our profile of Brian Shul and the Libya mission in SR-71 Over Libya, 1986.
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Sources: Brian Shul, Sled Driver (1991), expanded text as published by AirWingMedia and thesr71blackbird.com; short version as reprinted by Vintage Aviation News; Plane & Pilot; The Aviationist (24 May 2023); Boston Globe and Stars and Stripes obituaries (May 2023); Wikipedia, Brian Shul; South Carolina African American History Calendar and the Gathering of Eagles Foundation (Walter L. Watson Jr.); Sandboxx
My gawd, that was freaking awesome.
What an era that was, rocketing those beautiful Blackbirds against the edge of space. Ever since they were permanently retired (again,) it still amazes me that there was never a successor to the ’71, because it was such an effective platform for what it did. Could we even produce a faster jet today, maybe one even stealthier or more fuel-efficient? It’s hard to say, because we haven’t even tried. We keep hearing about new ramjets, Scramjets and the like, but I haven’t heard of anything dethroning the undisputed king of air-fed jet flight just yet. The King is dead, long live The King!
As nice as it would be, the military looks more at capabilities than record breaking. We can put the stealthier comment away, the SR-71 was not stealth. Official sources have come out saying it has 30% stealth reduction compared to what it would have had without chines etc, which equates to 0.81% less range of enemy radars. To support that there are multiple stories of SR-71 pilots coming out and saying they had been locked up by allied and enemy nations at multiple hundreds of miles away warning people in the area of the “unknown fast contact”. That aside, high speed is an incredibly expensive affair and particularly maintenance intensive. The SR-71 required a shocking amount of work and money to keep in the air, and frankly 10 stealthy drones can do the exact same job better, cheaper, and with less risk compared to one SR-71 aircraft, hence the replacement.
In the past the speed was required to evade hostile missiles. Today with ballistic missile defence systems an enemy can easily fire at a target with a higher speed than the SR-71, and automated firing systems can also cut down on crew response times. However as of late there has been another capability speed has offered. The much talked about SR-72 (officially mentioned enough to all but confirm its prototype existence) aims to use speed to allow it to be based in US mainland and fly to enemy hotspots and back in a short amount of time. It is expected to fly Mach 6, and exceptionally high allowing it to stretch its fuel. The only downside being it is a drone (far cheaper and less risky) so there won’t be the fun stories and romance of the SR-71. We can also expect it to be incredibly expensive, and only a handful be built.
So for the foreseeable future the SR-72 is the only ultra high speed aircraft projected, and the Mig-31 is the only manned aircraft with similar speed to the SR-71. As much as its a shame, reality has shown speed to be less useful than hoped. Still, we have plenty of stories from the past and many more incredible stealth-oriented stories are coming out today. I’m sure something else will overtake at some point, but that’s warfare for you.
As an old ‘last of the real fighters’ jock (the F-86”), as well as of the ‘first of the real twin supersonics’ (the Soviet MiG-19), I laid down a brilliant phrase to help me cope with those rapid advancements in military aviation. It went…. “nostalgia is not what it used to be”.
I still miss my primitive thundering juggernaut of the 70s and 80s where the sky was seldom the limit.
John Carapiet
Gp Capt (R)
Pakistan Air Force
Totally agree – Super awesome time in history for engineering.
But “we haven’t even tried” is not true. Pratt Whitney, Lockheed – they are always considering options, testing boundaries, and definitely working on a successor, but it’s a quantum leap up and thats a hard jump to make, because they aren’t making a successor of the blackbird.. they are making a successor of the answer to the solution. These are two fundamentally different ways of thinking.
Quickly, also, the issue is not a higher top speed – the sr71 could go wAYYY faster with less fuel efficiency.
The real problem being solved for then and now is – How to complete the mission while avoiding enemy fire!
Hyper sonics were not an issue back then.
They are now.
The successor to the blackbird, if there is one, will likely be unmanned and look completely different in order to cope with hyper sonic avoidance.
We are working on an sr 72
noice
epic
That is amazing
If you are a true SR-71 aficionado, go look up Brian Shul’s complete video presentation on his Blackbird experiences. It is a real special treat that you won’t soon forget. I believe it’s on YouTube.
Love Love Love this story. I 9nly wish I could hear it as told, in his voice, by Brian Shul. I heard him tell it. Nothing is better. Ive read it to others and it just isn’t as cool as when he tells it.
How do I find it?
With regard to the SR71.It was the American AirForces version of the CIA’s A12 Oxcart.Curtis LeMay wanted it and got it.A12”s flew higher,faster and at least ten years earlyer.Being a Black Project no speed records are noted for A12”s.SR71(is a god of the sky),because its airforce and a public known.I love it to bits.Now think what the Skunk Works has made since!….Kelly J,was a GOD….Aurora ring a bell?.And all that was last centuary….WOW.
I never flown in none of these beauties,but wishes one day looks forward in getting that rush. NOW WHO CAN HELP ME OUT ON THIS…
I wish one day to get a chance to fly in a fighter jet.
The SR71 Skunk works was pretty advanced of its time. I often wonder what it could do refurbished with todays modern jet engines. As I recall 12+3 is in the mullbag. Nasa had a couple for high altitude test at Dresden. 32 was produced including 4 or 5 trainers. “Kelly” Johnson and his team did something that only have in my opinin been followed b2 sprit and planes designed by Paul Allen and Burt Rutan ex the Stratolaunch.