Bob Gilliland, seen here standing next to the Blackbird, will speak about his experiences as a test pilot on November 14 at the Harbert Center.

Bob Gilliland has spent his life as a daredevil, logging more hours at two and three times the speed of sound than any test pilot in history. But he’s never experienced fear. “I never had any fear of flying. I liked it. The faster, the better,” Gilliland quips. Vertigo, on the other hand, is a constant companion. “Vertigo feels like you think you’re in such-and-such a position or bank angle and you really aren’t. It’s like when you out of bed in the morning and you might feel dizzy as you first get to your feet. It would be similar to that.”

Gilliland’s first solo flight was in a T-6, an advanced training plane. “That was back in 1949. The Air Force had downsized after World War II, and they didn’t care if they washed everybody out. They weren’t looking for pilots,” he laughs. In 1964, the one-time Korean fighter pilot became the first to fly the SR-71 Blackbird, the world’s fastest and highest-flying jet, capable of speeds over 2,000 m.p.h. reaching an altitude of 15 miles. He also tested the F-104 Starfighter that Sam Sheppard (portraying his trout-fishing buddy Chuck Yeager) bailed out of in the movie The Right Stuff (Yeager broke Mach 1, the speed of sound, in 1947). The Starfighter was nicknamed the “Widowmaker,” a moniker that manufacturer Lockheed “never did cotton to all that much,” laughs Gilliland. “They preferred ‘Missile with a Man in It.’” The “Widowmaker” nickname came from the F-104 having an unreliable engine and downward ejection rather than upward ejection from the cockpit. Gilliland has never had to eject out of a jet, though he’s experienced five dead sticks. “A dead stick is when you lose your engine power. And you either jump out or you glide the jet around and you land it. In the F-104, I had five of those.”

There’s little difference between flying Mach 1 and Mach 2 as far as what the pilot experiences physically. According to Gilliland, the most difficult aspect of flying at phenomenal speeds is staying alive. “We had an emergency every flight during the development of the Blackbird. One of the two engines would often blow and the other one would operate normally, and suddenly you’re flying sideways. It bangs around and bangs your head around; in the beginning I was concerned it would perhaps cause what we call ‘catastrophic structural failure.’ That means the tail comes off or something’s too weak and it comes unglued. But luckily, I had the greatest aeronautical designer of all time. If it wasn’t for that, I think I’d be long gone,” he laughs.

His last experimental flight was in 1985 at age 59, and Gilliland snickers when asked if he misses it. “Well, it’s certainly exciting and challenging and fun if you like that sort of thing, and it helps if you don’t mind getting killed.” Regarding his flippant attitude about the dangers of flying, Gilliland explains: “No, it is funny. If you’ve been around fighter pilots, they’ll joke about anything. Nothing’s sacred . . . including their own death. If anybody is sensitive about anything you better not let ‘em know it, or they’ll lean on it. That’s how we weed ‘em out.”

Bob Gilliland will speak at the Harbert Center on Thursday, November 14. Admission is $50 and includes a reception, dinner, and presentation. Call 833-8226 for details. An A-12 Blackbird, a Mach 3 spy craft used by the CIA in the 1960s, is currently on display at the Southern Museum of Flight.