The SR-71 Blackbird Was So Fast It Could 'Out Run the Sun'

What You Need to Know: On March 8, 1968, an SR-71 Blackbird, piloted by Lt. Col. Buddy Brown and RSO Maj. Dave Jensen, performed a remarkable flight from Beale AFB, California, to Kadena AB, Okinawa, Japan. Traveling at Mach 3 speeds, the Blackbird crossed the International Date Line and arrived two hours earlier than its departure time, effectively "outrunning the sun."

-Covering the 6,086-mile distance in five hours, the flight underscored the SR-71's unmatched speed and efficiency compared to the U-2 it replaced.

-Unfortunately, this Blackbird, later nicknamed "Rapid Rabbit," was lost in 1972 during a landing accident at Kadena.

Outrunning the Sun: the SR-71 Blackbirds Time-Defying Flight from Beale AFB to Kadena AB 

Thirty-five years after her official retirement from U.S. Air Force (USAF) service and twenty-five years after she retired from NASA, the final official flight took place on October 9, 1999, two weeks before Yours Truly graduated from USAF Basic Military Training [BMT]), the Lockheed Martin “Skunk Works” division’s most famous brainchild, the SR-71 Blackbird, remains the fastest air-breathing aircraft ever made, with a level flight speed record of Mach 2.858 (2,193.16 mph; 3,520.05 kilometers/h) and a dive speed record of Mach 3.56 (2,731.478 mph; 4,395.888 kilometers/h).  

As if that statistical history wasn’t impressive enough already, there was a time that an SR-71 traveled two hours backward in time and beat out the rising of the sun. It sounds too crazy and in the realm of science fiction to be true, dear readers. 

Well, please suspend your disbelief for a few minutes and read on… 

The Baseline Story 

The story comes to us courtesy of aviation historian and journalist Linda Sheffield Miller, in a November 8, 2024 article for The Aviation Geek Club, “Beale” as in Beale Air Force Base (AFB), California (ICAO: KBAB), about forty miles (sixty-four kilometers) north of the state capital city of Sacramento. “Kadena” as in Kadena Air Base (AB), Okinawa Prefecture, Japan, the largest and most active USAF base in East Asia.  

Appropriately enough, the first Blackbird to enter operational service was delivered to the 4200th (later ninth) Strategic Reconnaissance Wing at Beale AFB in January 1966. It was on March 8, 1968, that our story took place when pilot Lt. Col. Buddy Brown – who also flew the U-2 “Dragon Lady” spy plane, also a Skunk Works product) – and reconnaissance systems officer (RSO) Maj. Dave Jensen flew the very first SR-71 Blackbird out of the Beale to Kadena to replace the A-12 Oxcart. 

The Nitty-Gritty Details 

Ms. Miller quotes a passage from Buddy Brown's book, titled Beyond Mach 3: A Pilot’s Journey Through The U-2 and SR-71 (1950 to 1970) A Memoir, “The first leg of the first flight of the SR-71 across the Pacific was to Hawaii. And then on to Kadena I, it took five hours. When I flew the U-2 on this same flight it took five days (that included resting). Speed is good! On the third leg of the flight we encountered another small problem, my left generation went offline and I couldn’t reset it. This was a NO-GO situation which meant should land as soon as practical… I decided to continue because we were only 1000 miles (less than thirty minutes) from Kadena. At this time on the high-frequency radio using our code at callsign, I contacted Mama [Kadena’s Command post] and informed them ‘’I was lost, but was making good time’’…We took off from Beale at 11:00 AM and arrived at Kadena at 9:00 AM, two hours before we took off from Beale we beat the Sun!”

The distance from Beale AFB to Kadena AB is 6,086 miles (9794.467 kilometers).  

How Was That Even Possible?  

Quite simple, actually, with no time-warp technology needed. By flying on a westward route, treating Japan as the “Near West” instead of the “Far East,” Lt. Col. Brown and Maj. Jensen crossed the International Date Line sooner rather than later, which is halfway around the world from the prime meridian (0° longitude), the reference point of time zones, which runs through Greenwich, UK, marks the Western and Eastern Hemisphere divide, and leans towards the east at the Bering Strait between Asia and North America, leaving Cape Dezhnev in Russia a day ahead of Cape Prince of Wales in Alaska even though they are only fifty miles (eighty kilometers) apart. 

Where Are They Now? 

Sadly, the Blackbird in question, 61-7978 (later nicknamed “Rapid Rabbit”), didn’t live long enough to be preserved for posterity: she was written off on July 20, 1972, when, during the rollout phase of a landing at Kadena, she touched down slightly "hot," but had no chute to reduce the plane's speed. 

The pilot, Capt. Dennis K. Bush was unable to keep the Blackbird on the runway, and the plane suffered irreparable damage. The one silver lining behind the cloud was that Capt. Bush and his RSO, Capt. James W. Fagg, survived uninjured. 

About the Author

Christian D. Orr is a Senior Defense Editor for National Security Journal (NSJ). He is a former Air Force Security Forces officer, Federal law enforcement officer, and private military contractor (with assignments worked in Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Kosovo, Japan, Germany, and the Pentagon). Chris holds a B.A. in International Relations from the University of Southern California (USC) and an M.A. in Intelligence Studies (concentration in Terrorism Studies) from American Military University (AMU). He has also been published in The Daily Torch , The Journal of Intelligence and Cyber Security, and Simple Flying. Last but not least, he is a Companion of the Order of the Naval Order of the United States (NOUS). 

 Image Credit: Creative Commons and/or Shutterstock.