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Trivia: The SR - 71 holds six world records.  The most dramatic was its final flight to the Museum when it set a speed record on March 6, 1990. Lt. Col. Ed Yeilding and Lt. Col. Joseph Vida flew from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C. in 1 hour, 4 minutes, and 20 seconds, averaging 3,418 kilometers (2,124 miles) per hour.  After landing at Washington-Dulles International Airport, the airplane was turned over to the Smithsonian.

Tomcat Tuesday! Gotta share a story from a reply 8 did that got some feedback, so let's talk top-end speed! We were doing an acceptance check flight on a bird straight outta NARF. Engines hadn't been de-tuned yet. Did our Supersonic run outbound from San Clemente and popped up high. Hit 51,000 feet and Mach 2.1, then eased the throttle back, pointed to NKX, and literally coasted at idle all the way to feet dry (about 150 nm) landed with about 3.5 in the tanks. Ground control gave us shit about having a fast flight while we were gassing back up in the octagon, and by the time we parked we had a crowd. On post flight we saw that we had burned the new paint off the rails and they were shiny, bare titanium. 😎