The
Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird holds the official air speed record for a crewed
airbreathing jet engine aircraft with a speed of . The record was set on 28 July 1976 by
Eldon W. Joersz and George T. Morgan Jr. near Beale Air Force Base,
California,
USA. It was able to take off and land unassisted on conventional runways. SR-71 pilot
Brian Shul claimed in
The Untouchables that he flew faster than
Mach 3.5 on 15 April 1986, over
Libya, in order to avoid a
missile. The official record for fastest piston-engined aeroplane in level flight was held by a
Grumman F8F Bearcat, the
Rare Bear, with a speed of . The unofficial record is held by a British
Hawker Sea Fury at . Both were demilitarised and modified fighters. The fastest stock (original, factory-built) piston-engined aeroplane was unofficially the
Supermarine Spiteful F Mk 16, which "achieved a speed of 494m.p.h. at 28,500ft during official tests at Boscombe Down" in level flight. The unofficial record for fastest piston-engined aeroplane (not in level flight) is held by a
Supermarine Spitfire Mk.XIX flown by Flight Lieutenant
Edward "Ted" Powles, which was calculated to have achieved a speed of in a dive on 5 February 1952. The last new speed record ratified before
World War II was set on 26 April 1939 with a
Me 209 V1, at . The chaos and secrecy of the war meant that new speed breakthroughs were neither publicized nor ratified. In October 1941, an unofficial speed record of was secretly set by a
Messerschmitt Me 163A "V4" rocket aircraft. Continued research during the war extended the secret, unofficial speed record to by July 1944, achieved by a
Messerschmitt Me 163B "V18". The first new official record in the post-war period was achieved by a
Gloster Meteor F Mk.4 in November 1945, at . The first aircraft to exceed the unofficial October 1941 record of the Me 163A V4 was the
Douglas D-558-1 Skystreak, which achieved in August 1947. The July 1944 unofficial record of the Me 163B V18 was officially surpassed in November 1947, when
Chuck Yeager flew the
Bell X-1 to . The official speed record for a
seaplane moved by piston engine is , which attained on 24 October 1934, by
Francesco Agello in the
Macchi-Castoldi M.C.72 seaplane ("idrocorsa") and it remains the current record. It was equipped with the
Fiat AS.6 engine (version 1934) developing a power of at 3,300 rpm, with coaxial counter-rotating propellers. The original record holding Macchi-Castoldi M.C.72 MM.181 seaplane is at the Air Force Museum at
Vigna di Valle in Italy. ==Other air speed records==