[hydrogen18]

I believe you meant to say the "SR-71".

A SR71 would not have "War Emergency Power". I'm not even sure I've seen reference to "War Emergency Power" on any turbine engine. It's simply not a combat aircraft. As a matter of its regular operation, it must be capable of outflying any aircraft or missile in pursuit. In other words, flying at the absolute maximum airspeed was a normal event that is a possibility in every mission. Not a last ditch effort to disengage.

You really have nothing to back up the claims you are making. Not only is the SR71 no longer in operation, the aircraft don't even really exist anymore. The static displays out there largely had their wings cut off for transport. They were just reattached on site afterwards. They aren't airworthy any longer. Even if the top speed was a bit higher than published, there would be no reason to keep it classified now.

Plenty of pilots have published memoirs about how regular flight was Mach 3, with excursions to Mach 3.2. The absolute speed is just like any other aircraft. It's limited by design factors. Of course some crews wound up flying faster than Mach 3.2. But it's not like the blackbird was running around secretly at mach 10 or something.

[terufish]

I think he's referring to the fact that you can get higher than "normal" speed if you dump your weapons and accept damage from the heat, either air friction heating the skin of your plane, or just your engine temperatures. You may be able to maintain it for a short time to evade something.

Its similar to the way you can get your car to exceed design parameters if you risk blowing the engine and disable the speed limiter.