Originally Posted by MrSelfDestruct

Oh, you're very right. My father was doing intelligence work monitoring the Soviets during the Vietnam era, and he told me that the SR71 could more than double the acknowldeged speed. His description of a takeoff was that it would scream down the runway, get a couple hundred feet off, hit the afterburners and just disappear from sight with an awe-inspirign scream and a thundering sonic boom.