What is the fastest jet airplane?

It's hard to say

Officially, the fastest plane ever built is the SR-71 Blackbird, built by Lockheed. It was capable of speeds in excess of 3.3 mach (more than 2,200 miles per hour). It was decommissioned in 1998. No one knows for sure whether a faster plane exists, but many people suspect that the SR-91 -- if it actually exists -- is capable of speeds in 5-mach range.

Depends

The fastest known jet airplane is the SR-71 Blackbird. However faster aircraft have been flown by the U.S. military. But they are rocket powered and experimental which does not fall into your question of the fastest "jet" airplane. Currently the fastest commercial airliner is the Boeing 747-400. However, until it was retired the Concorde was the fastest (supersonic) commercial airliner.

Fastest production business jet class aircraft is the Cessna Citation X (model 750). Its maximum cruise speed is .92 Mach (although it's suspected that the aircraft has flown faster) ...Steve Fossett holds the US continental crossing record in a non-military aircraft with a Citation X in 2003, at an average speed of 726.83 mph.

Manned or Unmanned?

The standing manned jet speed record is currently held by the SR-71, as posted. Experimental manned projects may have exceeded that, but have not been announced.

The scram jet is even faster. But the current crop are all small and unmanned. Scram jet engines don't work at less than the speed of sound. They have to be launched from supersonic aircraft or attached to the nose of a rocket booster to get the scram jet up to minimum operating speed. The Boeing X-43, which is NASA's unmanned scram jet project, recently hit 7,546 mph or mach 9.8 in a test run. There is a report that another scram jet neared mach 10, but did so with a gravity assisted dive.

First answer by Schnazola. Last edit by Akin. Contributor trust: 121 [recommend contributor]. Question popularity: 31 [recommend question]