How to Properly Brag About the World's Fastest Plane

On this episode of Our American Stories, here’s Major Shul with his legendary story known today as the “LA Speed Check.”

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
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 s R seventy
one Blackbird spy plane remained the world's fastest and highest

(00:30):
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 seventy one pilot Brian School recalls
in his book Flood Driver, flying the world's fastest Yet
there are a lot of things we couldn't do in
an SR seventy one, but we were the fastest guise

(00:54):
on the block and loved reminding our fellow aviators of
this fact. Here's Major Schuel 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 seventy one pile when
Walter and I were doing a training mission around the

(01:15):
United States where you just were building up hours in time,
and we take off out of Beal hit a tanker
in Idaho, rip on up to Montana, zip across the
Denver hang a right, turned 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 was just

(01:35):
just a game crew coordination. Get build 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

(01:57):
in this air, as smooth as glass, not a gay
each moving in the cockpit. It was perfect. Now I'm
thinking we bad, and I feel sorry for Walter because
he has to monitor five radios in the back seat.
So I flipped the switch up just to listen. And
LA Center is controlling. They control when you fly southwest Elia.
The guy's controlling everybody, but we're above controlled their space,

(02:20):
so they have us on their scope, but they're not
talking to us. Now, there's 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 he makes you feel
important as a pilot. They don't just say yeah, okay,
here's your thing. They make you feel really cool. So

(02:41):
sure enough, this was pre GPS day. Some cessna guy
has to know us ground speed LA Center, Sessina November ten,
go offul you got a ground speed readout for us? Now?
Center would like to say, who cares? Get off free?
But no, he'll talk to him like he's John Glenn
No November aful. We'll show you ninety knots zero knots
on the ground and they do that sing song. But

(03:03):
that's how they talk and it makes you feel kind
of cool. Right after that, a Twin Bananza came up
to pimp the guy for speed I guess and LA
Center Twin Beach. Whatever you got a groundspeed rad l
for us and center lezikats Friday, Why me, God, please
just get off free. But he's gonna talk to him
like he's Air Force one Twin Beach. If we show
you one twenty one two zero knots on the ground.

(03:27):
And right after that, a Navy F eighteen out of
Lamore popped up on frequency. And you knew as a
Navy guy because he talked really slick on the radio
center Dusty five two speed check. And I'm thinking, wait
a minute, Dusty five two as a groundspeed indicator and

(03:47):
had million dollars F eighteen cockpits right there in the
heads up display. Why is he calling center to broadcast
his speed? I get it. We had just the meanest,
bad as fastest military jet in the valley. Only two day.
We're taking our little hornetget 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

(04:10):
can almost hear a little, a little glee in the
controller's voice, like we have put an end to this.
Testified two, we show you six twenty six two 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 frequency now. And there wasn't

(04:30):
an airliner from Seattle to San Diego that wanted to
be next and freak. It's sort of an etiquette thing
amongst flyers. And a twelve year old was reaching for
the mic button, and I thought, oh, no, late, 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.

(04:51):
It must die now, And I thought, nor, but if
I do, I'll upset Walter. And I want us to
be a good crew. And at that moment I heard
a click of the mic, and in the backseat, ladies
and gentlemen, Walter and I became a crew at that moment.
In his best innocent voice, la Center, Aspen three zero,

(05:12):
have you got up ground speed? Ridolf Horse, You could
almost hear a collective gasp on freak, like all the
poor fools didn't hear the previous transmissions. Oh that got
crushed like a grape. It's it's just a pilot thing.
But Center had to give you that same voice, Aspen
three zero, We show you one thousand, nine hundred ninety
two knots across the ground. When I know I was

(05:37):
gonna like Walter a loot as 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

(05:59):
absolutely fun being the fastest guys in the block. And
you've been listening to Major Brian Schull his story of
the SRS seventy one Blackbird, doing a little speed check
to show off just a little bit. By the way,
a little about Schull. He flew two hundred and twelve
combat missions and was shot down near the end of

(06:19):
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.

(06:40):
Bryan miraculously returned to full flight status, flying the A seven,
then the A ten, and went on to be an
instructor at the Air Force's top gun school. By the way,
these real life people, folks, real life people. His career
culminated in flying the SR seventy one Blackbird. Brian was
the pilot who provided President Ronald Reagan with detailed photos

(07:04):
of the Libyan terrorist camps in nineteen eighty six. Major
Brian Schule's SR seventy one Blackbirds story the LA Speed
check here on our American Stories Folks, if you love

(07:31):
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(07:52):
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