The SR-71 Spy Plane Outran Every Missile Fired At It

The SR-71B Blackbird, flown by the Dryden Flight Research Center as NASA 831, slices across the snow-covered southern Sierra Nevada Mountains of California after being refueled by an Air Force tanker during a 1994 flight. SR-71B was the trainer version of the SR-71. Notice the dual cockpit to allow the instructor to fly the airplane. Wikipedia

The SR-71 Spy Plane Was So Fast, It Outran Every Missile Fired at It -- Dario Leone and David Cenciotti, War Is Boring

Speed has always been as powerful as stealth

Until Lockheed Martin finally builds the SR-72 Mach-6 spy plane it announced in November, the iconic SR-71 Blackbird, capable of flying three times the speed of sound, remains the fastest warplane ever flown operationally.

So fast that no missiles fired at it had a chance of hitting.

When the U-2 spy plane was built in the 1950s, its designer Clarence “Kelly” Johnson already knew that it would be vulnerable to enemy defenses.

So to gather intelligence in foreign skies, in 1964 U.S. Pres. Lyndon Johnson announced that the Lockheed Advance Development Projects, also known as the Skunk Works, would build another strategic reconnaissance aircraft—one so fast that no other airplane could reach it.

Read more ....

My Comment: Yup .... sometimes speed is far more important than stealth. Not surprising .... the next U.S. spy plane will be even faster.