“The Lockheed SR-71 “Blackbird” was an advanced, long-range, Mach 3+ strategic reconnaissance aircraft. It was developed as a black project from the Lockheed A-12 reconnaissance aircraft in the 1960s by the Lockheed Skunk Works. Clarence “Kelly” Johnson was responsible for many of the design's innovative concepts. During reconnaissance missions the SR-71 operated at high speeds and altitudes to allow it to outrace threats. If a surface-to-air missile launch was detected, the standard evasive action was simply to accelerate and outrun the missile”. – Wikipedia

Photo: A U.S. Air Force SR-71A, also known as the “Blackbird”, is put through it's paces during a test flight over Beale Air Force Base in California. The aircraft is a strategic reconnaissance plane by Lockheed and is the world's fastest and highest flying operational aircraft. (Photo by Getty Images)

In Dougie Wallace’s photos of Mumbai taxis, the chatter, yelling, and constant horns of the city are almost audible. A selection of his images is on show at Gayfield Creative Spaces, Edinburgh, as part of the Retina photography festival until 30 July. For four years, the Glasgow-born Wallace focused his photos on one kind of taxi in particular: the Premier Padmini, a 1960s workhorse painted in black and yellow. Locally known as “Kaali-Peeli”, there were once more than 60,000 of them in the Indian city. But thanks to laws restricting pollution, the cars now are fast disappearing from Mumbai’s streets. (Photo by Dougie Wallace/The Guardian)

A passenger waits after his train arrived in Nouadhibou, Mauritania’s second largest city and the main export port for the country’s iron ore industry, on June 25, 2014. The mining company’s employees proudly call their firm the lung of their nation's economy and the train that ferries the ore to the coast stretches some two kilometres, making it one of the world's longest. SNIM mines black iron ore in the northern town of Zouerate, a remote desert location which nevertheless attracts people from all over the country looking for work. (Photo by Joe Penney/Reuters)

Lance Cpl. Blas Trevino of the 1st Battalion, 5th Marines, shouts out as he is rescued on a medevac helicopter from the U.S. Army's Task Force Lift “Dust Off”, Charlie Company 1-214 Aviation Regiment after he got shot in the stomach outside Sangin, in the Helmand Province of southern Afghanistan on June 11, 2011. The Army's 'Dust Off' crew needed two attempts to get him out, as they were fired upon and took five rounds of bullets into the tail of their aircraft. (Photo by Anja Niedringhaus/AP Photo/File)

A young sloth named Gloria, that was rescued after being stolen from the wild destined for trafficking, peeks out of the box it is being taken to be released at the city's Botanical Garden in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Monday, March 13, 2023. Gloria was cared for by the Free Life Institute NGO that rehabilitates injured wildlife found in the surrounding Rio area and returns them, when possible, back to the wild. Those that are too injured to be released are sent to other rehab centers or sanctuaries to live out their lives in protected environments. (Photo by Bruna Prado/AP Photo)

American photographer Doug Perrine, 60, snapped the shots last year while the False Killer Whale was out hunting for food. (Photo by Doug Perrine/Iber-Press)