World's Fastest Aircraft

Jet Aircraft are powered by jet engines and move much faster as compared to the propeller-powered aircraft. You can see a jet aircraft at a certain place before your sound can even reach there! Yes undoubtedly some of the jet aircraft even move faster than the speed of sound. The concept of jet aircraft was first given by two engineers, Frank Whittle of UK and Hans von Ohain of Germany.
Top 10 fastest jets are as follows:

10: General Dynamics F-111 “Aardvark”

It was developed in 1960’s by US and it is in active use of the Royal Australian Air Force. Its max speed is 2.5 Mach/ 2.5 times faster than the speed of sound. Aardvark is powered by twin Pratt & Whitney TF30-P-100 afterburners turbo fans.

9: MIG 31 Foxhound

It is produced by Russia and is an advanced version of MiG-25 FoxBat. The max speed of Foxhound is 2.83 Mach or 1860 mph and it is driven by two SoloveivD-30F6 afterburners turbo fans. Foxhound has the capability to produce 34,172 lbf of dry thrust.

8: F-15 Eagle

A product of USA, F-15 Eagle is powered by double Pratt & amp; Whitney F100 axial-flow turbofan with an ability to produce 29,000 lbf of thrust. It has a max speed of 2.5 Mach.

7: XB-70 Valkyrie

It has a max speed of 3.1 Mach and is produced by USA. It is powered by 6 General Electric YJ93-GE-3 afterburning turbojet machines.

6: Bell X-2 Starbuster

This jet comes with a sad but successful history with it. It is produces by USA and was a research project with ability to cross Mach 3. Lt.Col. Frank K. “Pete” Everest in November 1955 was the first one to test this jet and he flew this thing above Mach 3 but unfortunately, this took his life as well. It was indeed a despondent incident. Starbuster is powered by two-chamber XLR25 sea level thrust throttle-able engine.

5: Mig-25 “Foxbat”

It is produced by Russia and is really pragmatic in functioning at high altitude above 80,000 feet. Its max speed is 3.2 Mach and is powered by twin Tumansky R-15B-300 afterburning turbojets.

4: SR-71 BlackBird

It was developed by Lockheed Corporation, USA in the 1960’s and is the upgrade version of U-2 reconnaissance aircraft. It is powered by 2 Pratt $ amp; Whitney J58-1 continuous –bleed afterburning turbojets with a capability to supply 32,500 lbf thrust each. It can fly as high an altitude as 100,000 feet with 3 times the speed of sound (3.5 Mach). It was in use by USAF for 40 years and was retired in 1998.

3: X-15

With the max speed of 6.72 Mach, X-15 is the 3rd fastest jet aircraft. Its engine is Thiokol XLR99-RM-2 liquid fuel rocket engin that uses liquid oxygen us fuel. It can fly as high as 354,330 feet.

2: X-43A

This jet is fueled by Hydrogen and can move at a speed of 9.8 Mach. The credit goes to the supersonic-combustion-ramjet. It is produced by USA.

1: Space Shuttle

The fastest plane in the world is powered by 3 assemblies that contain reusable Orbiter Vehicle or OV, the external tank or ET which is fueled by LOX/LX2, and 2 reusable solid rocket boosters or SRB which are powered by MMH/N204. Its max speed is more than 20 Mach.

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