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The stall speed of an SR-71 is 150 knots. All that really means is the airplane will fall out of the sky if you slow down to 150 knots.

"Minimum aerodynamic control speed"--how fast you've got to go if you want to steer the airplane--is more important. An SR-71 with full fuel tanks has a minimum aerodynamic control speed close to 300 knots--which is one of the reasons you never took off with full fuel tanks. The less the plane weighs the lower this speed is, so they'd put 45,000 pounds of fuel in it (the minimum you could leave with), go up, accelerate to 400 knots or so, refuel and leave.

So, in reality, the slowest speed an SR-71 could go, if you wanted to use the airplane again, was 300 knots.

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14y ago

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