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‘It’s just black sky up there’: 50 years on, the transatlantic flight speed record remains unbroken
On 1 September 1974 two men made the fastest ever journey between New York and London. The astonishing trip – at three times the speed of sound – took less than two hours and set a record that still stands 50 years later.
Even the mighty Concorde, which set the record for the fastest commercial transatlantic flight in 1996, straggled in almost an hour behind.
The US air force Lockheed Blackbird SR-71 jet had a crew of two – pilot James Sullivan and reconnaissance systems operator Noel Widdifield – who completed the journey between the two cities in one hour, 54 minutes and 56 seconds before triumphantly landing to a fanfare welcome at the Farnborough air show in Hampshire.
I'm not denyin' the women are foolish: God Almighty made 'em to match the men.
-- George Eliot
