Fastest piston-engined aircraft

What to remember

A piston engine, a straight line, level flight: that is the precise frame of Steve Hinton Jr.'s mark. On 2 September 2017, flying the P-51 “Voodoo”, he reached 855.41 km/h, or 531.53 mph, the highest speed ever reached by a piston-engined aircraft flying straight and level.

This record fits into a precise breakdown. The Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI), which defines the rules for all official aviation records and ratifies them, first separates landplanes, seaplanes and amphibians. It then sorts them by weight category and by engine type: piston, turbojet, turboprop or rocket.

Within each group there are records over a straight course and others around closed circuits of various sizes, carrying various payloads. The “Voodoo” mark belongs to the first family: pure speed along a straight path.