This is an I-Heart podcast.

And we continue with our American stories.

And our next story comes from a man whose YouTube videos are followed by hundreds of thousands of viewers of all ages, and he's simply known as the history guy.

In 1966, an SR-71 Blackbird disintegrated at 78,000 feet.

The pilot's first thought was, quote, no one could live through what

just happened, therefore, I must be dead. Here's the history guy with the story of the SR-71

Blackbird disintegrating at altitudes unknown to most men. There's an old airplane story that's called the LA speed check.

Go something like this.

A pilot of a single-engine Cessna calls the Los Angeles A route control center and asks for

a speed check, wants to know how fast he's going, and the center tells him he's going about

90 knots.

Immediately thereafter, another pilot, someone didn't say a twin-engine beachcraft, trying to make fun of how slow the Cessna goes, asked for a speed check, and the center tells him that he's going around 121 knots, but almost immediately thereafter another voice chimes in.

And this is a Navy pilot who's flying in an F-18 fighter jet, and he doesn't really need to know how fast he's going. He's got an airspeed

indicator inside his cockpit. He's just trying to prove to everybody out there on the frequency

that he's flying the biggest, baddest, fastest jet in the world and show all those

Cessna and beachcraft owners how fast our plane really flies. And the LA Center radios back that

he's going an impressive 620 knots.

And you think that would be enough to win this little contest.

When another voice casually asks,

this is Aspen 30, can you give us a speed check?

And after a moment, the center responds,

Aspen 3-0, we have you going 1,9003 knots.

...