What is the fastest aircraft in the sky? According to GlobalAir.com, the North American X-15 is the fastest type of aircraft in the world. The North American X-15 is a military aircraft that can reach a max speed of 4,520 miles per hour, three times faster than the max speed of the world’s fastest commercial jet! Global Air ranked fifty-five different types of aircraft based on their max speed; the types of aircraft included in their comparison were military aircraft, commercial jets, and private jets from around the globe. The visual includes an illustration of each aircraft, with condensation trails falling behind to represent the max speed that the aircraft is capable of reaching. Aircraft for the military is by far the fastest type of aircraft that was analyzed. The first fourteen on the list are all military aircraft from around the world, but none come close to the impressive speed that the U.S. Air Force’s North American X-15 reaches. The Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird’s max speed of 2,500 mph is completely dwarfed by the North American’s speeds of over 4.5k miles per hour.
How many different aircraft can reach speeds of over a thousand miles per hour? Just twenty-two aircraft can reach these exhilarating speeds, and to our surprise that includes two different types of commercial jets. The Tupolev Tu-144 is the fastest commercial jet in the world and can reach a max speed of 1,600 miles per hour. This high rate of speed could fly people between the two furthest points in the lower forty-eight states in just two hours! The Aérospatiale Concorde is the second fastest commercial jet with a max speed of 1,354 mph. The fastest private jets are quite a bit slower though, with the Bombardier Global 8000 maxing out at a speed of 721 mph. Have you ever ridden on one of the fastest aircraft in the world?
