A few weeks ago, Pech and I stood before an SR-71. With a top speed of Mach 3.3 (that we knew about, at least), the “Blackbird” is a plane, friends. It’s also old as hell: the plane’s first test flight was in 1962.

Seven years later, the famous Concorde was first tested, and by 1976 we civilians got the chance to soar beyond Mach 1.

Great achievements, all, but three decades later I ask: when’s the last time you broke the sound barrier? Concorde has been retired, the -71 is in mothballs, and the current state-of-the-art in airlines is basically a 747 with a tumor.

Which is why I’m thrilled to learn (via Gizmodo) that the French and the Japanese are cooperating in an effort to build a new supersonic airliner. It can’t come soon enough.

Now when do I get my jetpack?

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 16th, 2005 at 3:02 am and is filed under Miscellany.. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.