by Chris Pearce

Created on: May 14, 2008   Last Updated: September 09, 2008

The F-4 Phantom, or "Phabulous Phantom" as it was affectionately known, served US military forces for a record 38 years. It first flew in 1958 before being used by the Navy as an inceptor from 1960, although it was also quite handy in other types of military missions, including ground support bombing, air superiority, air defense suppression, fleet defense, long range strike, and reconnaissance. It became the F-4 in 1962. There were various versions built over the years.

Its history can be traced back to 1952 when research by McDonnell Aircraft concluded that the navy was in need of an attack fighter. The company designed one and made an unsolicited approach to the navy with it. In 1953, the navy asked for an upgrade to the McDonnell F3H Demon, a carrier based fighter, but then decided that the new Vought F-8 Crusader fighter answered its needs. Consequently, McDonnell developed its new "Super Demon" into an all weather fighter bomber. But the navy considered it already had the aircraft for ground attack and for dogfighting. So McDonnell further developed the aircraft into a fleet defense interceptor. More alterations were made before the company released its prototype XK4H-1. The aircraft was named the Phantom II and the navy ordered five of the versatile fighters in 1955.

The F-4 Phantom was used by the US Navy as a fleet defense fighter from 1960 and by the US Air Force from 1963 as a fighter bomber. It flew at more than twice the speed of sound on its first air force flight that's a mile in just over two seconds. The aircraft set 16 world records in its time. It climbed to an altitude of more than 98,000 feet in 1959 as part of early testing, or about three times as high as most passenger jets fly. This was done by climbing to 90,000 feet before the pilot turned off the engines and glided up to the record altitude. The pilot then restarted the engines and made it back to earth. The Phantom broke records for getting to certain altitudes in quick time in 1962. It reached 10,000 feet in 34.5 seconds, 20,000 feet in 48.8 seconds, and 40,000 feet in 77.2 seconds, climbing over 700 feet a second, or something like eight times the vertical speed of a large, quick roller coaster. It also set a number of speed records.

General characteristics of the aircraft included a length of 63 feet, a wingspan of 38 feet, a weight of about 14 tons empty and 19 tons loaded, and a crew of two,. Fuel capacity was 2,000 gallons, or 3,300 gallons with external tanks. It had a range

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