The max on the SR-71 was about 16 miles (roughly 40 percent higher than the flight ceiling used by private jets, which fly above commercial airliners), or 1/4 the distance to the Karman Line. Still, I'd rather fly the distances in the SR-71, even facing backward (since I'm not a pilot). Only aircraft capable of sustained flight above Mach 3 (not counting the X-15, about which one test pilot said, it was the only plane he'd ever flown where he was glad when the engine quit). Never had an operational loss, outran every missile ever fired at it, what an engineering achievement of Clarence "Kelly" Johnson (see his memoir, "More Than My Share", grad of MTU btw) and his Skunk Works at Lockheed. Just building windows that wouldn't melt or fall out, and keeping the cockpit cool, oh those little things, brilliant, brilliant.
“oh those little things, brilliant, brilliant.”
Regarding “little things” I recall a documentary regarding either the U2 or the SR-71 on how they had to survey and modify the roads between the Skunk Works and the airstrip (in Nevada???).
Every guardrail, sign, post, etc. had to be measured and moved out of the way of the oversized load. And I presume under some cover story.
Was an engineering test flight which suffered a propulsion malfunction. It lost directional stability at 83,000 feet and over MACH 3. The pilot Bill Weaver survived being thrown from the disintegrating aircraft. Kittenger’s automated drogue system rescued the unconscious pilot, whose suit helmet was encased in ice until just prior to deployment of the main parachute.