‘It’s just black sky up there’: 50 years on, the transatlantic flight speed record remains unbroken

On 1 September 1974 two men made the fastest ever journey between New York and London. The astonishing trip – at three times the speed of sound – took less than two hours and set a record that still stands 50 years later.

Even the mighty Concorde , which set the record for the fastest commercial transatlantic flight in 1996, straggled in almost an hour behind.

The US air force Lockheed Blackbird SR-71 jet had a crew of two – pilot James Sullivan and reconnaissance systems operator Noel Widdifield – who completed the journey between the two cities in one hour, 54 minutes and 56 seconds before triumphantly landing to a fanfare welcome at the Farnborough air show in Hampshire.

Widdifield, now 83, splits his time between Virginia and Florida in the US. “In a way, this was a standard flight for us,” he said, reflecting on the momentous day. “There was nothing different about it or the way we flew the plane. But we had been told in July 1974 that we would attempt the world record for flying between New York and London, which had previously been set by Royal Navy pilots. There was a lot of media interest.”

It wasn’t just air force bragging rights at stake. America was undergoing something of an international public relations crisis – just three weeks earlier, the disgraced president Richard Nixon had resigned after the Watergate scandal and Gerald Ford had been sworn in to the White House. There was still a hangover from their disastrous involvement in the Vietnam war. The country needed something to cheer on.

There were other machinations, too. Widdifield told the Observer : “We didn’t know anything about this at the time, but behind the scenes there had been negotiations between the US and the UK to base Blackbird SR-71s on British soil.

“There were concerns about this in Britain because it was considered the move might ruffle a lot of feathers, especially in the Middle East. But after we broke the record and flew into the Farnborough air show, that seemed to seal the deal, and the UK allowed SR-71s to be based there.”

Widdifield was 33 years old when he made the historic flight. He had originally wanted to be a train driver, but after seeing a USAF jet fly low over his house when he was 12, he decided he would be a pilot.

After his training and flying B-52 bombers, Widdifield joined the Blackbird SR-71 programme at Beale air force base in California from 1971 to 1975, after which he stopped flying and became involved in the US space programme until 1982.

Flying the Blackbird was akin to being an astronaut. The crew wore space suits and flew at an altitude of 80,000ft (the maximum approved altitude for most commercial aircraft is 42,000ft). Widdifield said: “It’s just black sky up there. You see the stars, and either the moon or the sun, depending on what time of day it is.”

Their plane took off from Beale and had to fly around the coast to New York to avoid causing a sonic boom over populated areas and extensive damage to property. High above the city was an invisible “gate”, which would mark the start of the journey. Reaching speeds of Mach 3.2 – three times the speed of sound and about 2,455mph – the Blackbird tore through the gate, and the record attempt was under way.

The aircraft had to take on fuel twice: when it took off, linking with a refuelling plane above California to fill it to capacity, and partway during the journey near to Greenland.

There was also an incident which would have looked terrifying from the outside but which the crew took in their stride. The Blackbird began to suddenly “yaw” – moving swiftly from side to side – after losing thrust.

The Blackbird took in air from the front to give thrust to the engines, and it was common for a device in the inlet to become displaced, causing one engine to lose much of its power momentarily.

Widdifield said: “The automatic restart systems kicked in, repositioning this cone that had become misplaced, and the engine restarted. It wasn’t particularly a worry other than wondering what effect it might have on the record speed run.”

Related: Supersonic flight: will it ever rise out of the ashes of Concorde?

The plane crossed over the London “gate” without further incident and the Blackbird came into Farnborough, where there was a huge crowd waiting and a press conference was held, during which Widdifield and Sullivan were connected by phone to the new president. “There was a lot of international coverage for a year afterwards,” says Widdifield, who has six scrapbooks of cuttings. “One thing Jim and I always tried to emphasise, though, was that although it was the two of us who got the glory, there was a huge team behind every flight.

“When you take into account all the support staff and admin workers and everybody who does their bit to get us in the air, you’re talking about a thousand people. They need as much credit as Jim and me.”

Widdifield, who has been married to his wife, Ann, for 63 years and has two children, five grandchildren and two great-grandchildren, mourns the loss of both his co-pilot Jim Sullivan, who died in 2021, and the Blackbird SR-71 itself, which was officially retired from service in 1998.

He said: “Jim and I stayed in touch, but later on we only saw each other a few times at SR-71 reunions, as we lived so far apart.

“I was sad, of course, when the SR-71 programme ended. And am I surprised that nobody has beaten our record in 50 years? No. Because there’s been no other aircraft developed since that could beat it.”