January 5, 2026 • 7 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, the late Major Brian Shul shares his legendary “LA Speed Check” story, an absurd and unforgettable moment from the cockpit of the fastest plane in the world, the SR-71 Blackbird.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
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 SR seventy one
Blackbirds spyplane remained the world's fastest and highest flying operational aircraft.
(00:33):
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 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 seventy one, but
we were the fastest guys on the block and loved
(00:55):
reminding our fellow aviators of this fact. Here's Major Shool
with his legendary story known today as the LA Speed Check.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
It's called the LA Speed Story, and it was just
a story about one day. It was really cool being
SR seventy one 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
Bill hit a tanker in Idaho, rip on up to Montana,
zip across Danver, hang a right turn in Albuquerque, out
over Los Angeles, up to Seattle, back into Sacramento. Two hours,
(01:29):
twenty one minutes. And you just do that, and then you
do it backwards and you hit a tank or 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
(01:51):
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 back seat.
So I flipped the switch up just to listen. And
(02:12):
LA Center is controlling. They control all when you fly
Southwest Air. There, the guy's 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's controllers all
over the country Jacksonville Center, Chicago Center, Seattle Center. You
know it's the same guy. They all talk the same
(02:33):
and it's really cool the way they talk because he
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 to this was pre GPS day.
Some SASNA guy has to know his ground speed LA
Center SYSNA 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
(02:55):
he's John Glynn s that's November eight, Will well 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 Beach whatever,
you got a ground speed right for us and centered
like seacats Friday, Why me, God, please just get off free.
(03:18):
But he's gonna talk to him like he's Air Force
one Twin Beach. Shall we show you one twenty one
two's zero knots on the ground. And right after that,
a Navy F eighteen out of Lamore popped up on
frequency and you knew it as a Navy guy because
he talked really slick on the radio center dusty five
(03:40):
to two speed check, And I'm thinking, wait a minute,
Dusty five to two is a ground speed indicator and
had million dollar F eighteen cockpits right there and the
head's 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
(04:02):
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 Testy five two, we show
you six twenty six twos zero knots across the ground.
And it was that across the ground, see that little
(04:24):
knife like, I hope nobody else has the nerve to
get on frequency 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.
(04:45):
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 dying. 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 back seat, Ladies and gentlemen, Walter and I became
a crew. At that moment, his best innocent voice, la
(05:10):
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 they got crushed like a grape.
It it's just a pilot thing. But Center had to
give you that same voice, aspden threes there we show
you one nine ninety two knots across the ground. When
(05:36):
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
(05:58):
a moment. It was absolutely fun being the fastest guys
on the block.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
And you've been listening to Major Brian Schule 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 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
(06:23):
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 seven,
(06:46):
then the A ten, 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 seventy one Blackbird. Brian
was the pilot who provided President Ronald Reagan with detailed
photos of the Libyan terrorist camps in nineteen eighty six.
(07:08):
Major Brian Schules SR seventy one Blackbirds story the LA
speed check here on Our American Stories Liehabib here, and
(07:31):
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,
(07:51):
the iHeartRadio app, or anywhere you get your podcasts. It
helps us keep these great American stories coming
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 seventy one
Blackbirds spyplane remained the world's fastest and highest flying operational aircraft.
(00:33):
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 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 seventy one, but
we were the fastest guys on the block and loved
(00:55):
reminding our fellow aviators of this fact. Here's Major Shool
with his legendary story known today as the LA Speed Check.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
It's called the LA Speed Story, and it was just
a story about one day. It was really cool being
SR seventy one 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
Bill hit a tanker in Idaho, rip on up to Montana,
zip across Danver, hang a right turn in Albuquerque, out
over Los Angeles, up to Seattle, back into Sacramento. Two hours,
(01:29):
twenty one minutes. And you just do that, and then you
do it backwards and you hit a tank or 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
(01:51):
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 back seat.
So I flipped the switch up just to listen. And
(02:12):
LA Center is controlling. They control all when you fly
Southwest Air. There, the guy's 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's controllers all
over the country Jacksonville Center, Chicago Center, Seattle Center. You
know it's the same guy. They all talk the same
(02:33):
and it's really cool the way they talk because he
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 to this was pre GPS day.
Some SASNA guy has to know his ground speed LA
Center SYSNA 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
(02:55):
he's John Glynn s that's November eight, Will well 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 Beach whatever,
you got a ground speed right for us and centered
like seacats Friday, Why me, God, please just get off free.
(03:18):
But he's gonna talk to him like he's Air Force
one Twin Beach. Shall we show you one twenty one
two's zero knots on the ground. And right after that,
a Navy F eighteen out of Lamore popped up on
frequency and you knew it as a Navy guy because
he talked really slick on the radio center dusty five
(03:40):
to two speed check, And I'm thinking, wait a minute,
Dusty five to two is a ground speed indicator and
had million dollar F eighteen cockpits right there and the
head's 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
(04:02):
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 Testy five two, we show
you six twenty six twos zero knots across the ground.
And it was that across the ground, see that little
(04:24):
knife like, I hope nobody else has the nerve to
get on frequency 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.
(04:45):
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 dying. 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 back seat, Ladies and gentlemen, Walter and I became
a crew. At that moment, his best innocent voice, la
(05:10):
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 they got crushed like a grape.
It it's just a pilot thing. But Center had to
give you that same voice, aspden threes there we show
you one nine ninety two knots across the ground. When
(05:36):
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
(05:58):
a moment. It was absolutely fun being the fastest guys
on the block.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
And you've been listening to Major Brian Schule 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 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
(06:23):
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 seven,
(06:46):
then the A ten, 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 seventy one Blackbird. Brian
was the pilot who provided President Ronald Reagan with detailed
photos of the Libyan terrorist camps in nineteen eighty six.
(07:08):
Major Brian Schules SR seventy one Blackbirds story the LA
speed check here on Our American Stories Liehabib here, and
(07:31):
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,
(07:51):
the iHeartRadio app, or anywhere you get your podcasts. It
helps us keep these great American stories coming
Host
Lee Habeeb
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