I think there is a lesson here that applies to more than just planes. Speed often can solve a problem in a simple way. The enemy will fire missiles at us. What

I think there is a lesson here that applies to more than just planes. Speed often can solve a problem in a simple way. The enemy will fire missiles at us. What shall we do? (1) Invent missile-proof armor, (2) Build computer-guided anti-missile lasers, (3) Just fly really fast. I guess all of those are hard to do. Making the SR-71 fly at Mach 3 wasn't easy. But to me it seems more elegant. In the early 2000s, Google made a big deal about speed in web apps. I think it still does, but I don't hear about it anymore. And everybody knows that GMail is slower. But I appreciated it while it lasted.