The record for fastest manned flight was taken in 28 July 1976 by Capt. Eldon W. Joersz and Maj. George T. Morgan on the Lockheed blackbird SR-71 and was unbeaten for almost 40 years now, reaching a top speed of 3.5km/h. The plane was top secret at the time of the cold war and was designed for military observation and would sometimes outrun enemy missiles. Lockheed is now working on a new version the SR-72 able to reach hypersonic speed almost twice as fast as its predecessor.
