I found this essay about the SR-71 Blackbird very poetic.
The SR-71 Blackbird is one of my all-time favorite airplanes. (Others are A-10 Warthog (look at it's 30mm Gatling gun!), Messerschmitt Bf 109, P-51 Mustang, and F-4 Phantom. I spent a lot of time when I was between 10 to 16 poring over various weapon systems.)
Note that in the article, the plane flew at more than Mach 3 (or three times the speed of sound.) For comparison, handgun bullets travel around Mach 1. Rifle bullets travel around Mach 2. The SR-71 plane is literally faster than the speeding bullets!
More info about the plane at the Wikipedia article. A lot of interesting info. For example, do you know that when the plane is not flying, the fuel would leak from its body since it was designed to fly at high speed so the friction would heat up, expand, and seal the joints in the plane?
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*Actually, the title should be Titanium Poetry since the the plane is mostly titanium.
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