Name: Flexing in the Sky - Bill Burr
Uploaded: 2022-01-13T14:30:09.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Flexing in the Sky - Bill Burr' from Billy Twinkle Toes on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-01-13. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Flexing in the Sky - Bill Burr' from Billy Twinkle Toes on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-01-13. Transcript available.

All right, SR-71 Blackbird pilot tells story.
The story you were trying to recollect this past Monday,
oh, regarding the ground speed checks.
Oh, okay.
Let's see if this is audio or is it a...
Okay, so yeah.
Okay, center, Aspen 20.
You got a ground speed radar for us.
There was a pause longer than normal.
Aspen and I show 1,942 knots.
No further inquiries were heard on that freaks.
Okay.
All right, can I read all of this?
Okay, so basically what happened is
I guess there was some guys flying around
and somebody goes to do an altitude check,
which I guess is like a big dick thing in aviation
that if you're flying the highest, you know,
you got the biggest balls.
Typical dumb guy shit, right?
So anyways, here's the story of somebody who did that
and then got basically topped like three or four times
within the transmission here.
Throughout its nearly 24-year career,
the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird Mach 3 strategic reconnaissance aircraft
remained the world's fastest and highest flying operational aircraft.
From 80,000 feet, it could survey 100,000 square miles of the Earth's surface
per hour.
So it comes as no surprise if, thanks to astonishing flight characteristics,
the aircraft set numerous speed and altitude records throughout its career.
Nevertheless, the Blackbird wasn't an easy plane to fly.
As SR-71 pilot Brian Shull recalls in his book, Sled Driver,
there were a lot of things we couldn't do in an SR-71,
but we were the fastest guys in the block
and love reminding our fellow aviators of this fact.
People often asked us if because of this fact it was fun to fly the jet.
Fun would not be the first word I would use to describe flying this plane.
Intense, maybe even cerebral.
Jesus Christ.
So that thing was squirrely, going faster than anything else at 80,000 fucking
feet.
Dude, those guys are nuts.
I like my little egg beater here, helicopter.
However, according to Shull, there was one day in our sled experience
when we would have to say that it was pure fun to be the fastest guys out there,
at least for the moment.
I'll always remember a certain radio exchange that occurred one day
as Walt, my backseater, and I were screaming across Southern California,
13 miles high.
13 miles high.
We were monitoring various radio transmissions from our other aircraft
as we entered Los Angeles airspace.
Though they didn't really control us,
they did monitor our movement across the scope.
I heard a Cessna ask for a readout of its ground speed.
90 knots, Center replied.
Moments later, a twin beach required the same.
120 knots, Center answered.
We weren't the only ones proud of our ground speed that day.
It's almost instantly an F-18 smugly transmitted.
Center, Dusty, 52 request ground speed readout.
There was a slight pause.
Then the response, 620 knots on the ground, Dusty.
All right, so he just big leagued those,
the guy in the Cessna and then the twin.
Another silent pause.
As I was thinking to myself how ripe a situation this was,
I heard a familiar click of a radio transmission coming from my back seater.
It was at that precise moment I realized Walt and I had become a real crew.
For both of us were thinking in unison.
How cool is that?
Center, Aspen 20.
You got a ground speed readout for us?
There was a longer than normal pause.
Aspen, I show, 1,942 knots.
No further inquiries were heard on that frequency.
That's fucking awesome.
Oh, men.
That's how we break balls.
That's how we break balls.