In 1989 or so I was sitting in a conference room in Bad Kreuznach, Germany, when an enormous bang happened and I was about to jump under the table. The Germans with us were unfazed, as it was merely NATO jets breaking the sound barrier because…well, freedom, of course.

Here's an interesting anecdote from the Wikipedia article about early tests on the F-4 "Phantom":

Operation Top Flight: On 6 December 1959, the second XF4H-1 performed a zoom climb to a world record 98,557 ft. Commander Lawrence E. Flint, Jr., USN, accelerated his aircraft to Mach 2.5 (1,650 mph) at 47,000 ft and climbed to 90,000 ft at a 45° angle. He then shut down the engines and glided to the peak altitude. As the aircraft fell through 70,000 ft, Flint restarted the engines and resumed normal flight.

Aerospace machismo isn't my favorite thing in the world, but you do have to admire the courage of somebody who'd reach over and switch off the ignition of an experimental aircraft while climbing through 47,000 feet at Mach 2.5.

I have a few bits and pieces of SR-71A (61-7953 / 2004), which crashed near the place I used to work.

Oh, no. I was a DOT kinda guy. My last post was in Shoshone CA, where that bird went down 30 years before I got there.