Originally Posted by
N9373M
Brian Shul has a great story about requesting GS from ATC in his Sled Driver book. Basically, there's a strong tail wind and requests for GS start from a Cessna, one-upmanship begins with a corporate, then a military fighter, then finally Shul's backseater requests GS for "Aspen 20". Long pause from the controller, uuuuum Aspen 20, I show 1700 knots GS. There were no other GS requests that day.
Hmmmm....... ATC wasn't allowed to do that. No Cessna would even hear an SR71 on UHF. The SR-71 did not use VHF. Even its UHF was a discrete frequency for the SR. The transmit button for ATC wasn't armed unless they were actually talking to an SR. The altitudes were coded, and changed regularly. Oh, and what tailwind is at 80,000 feet? They didn't spend a lot of time below 60,000.
I call BS on that one (whether its in the book, or not).