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It was named Phantom II on July 3, 1959, during a ceremony held at the McDonnell plant in St. Louis to celebrate the company's 20th anniversary. It remained in production until the company's 40th anniversary. By then, the numeral "II" had been discontinued; it had become the only Phantom.
The F-4H established 16 speed, altitude and time-to-climb records. In 1959, its prototype set the world altitude record at 98,556 feet. In 1961, an F-4 set the world speed record at 1,604 mph on a 15-mile circuit. By the end of production in 1985, McDonnell had built 5,068 Phantom IIs and Mitsubishi, in Japan, had built 127. The F-4s bought by the U.S. Air Force were designated F-110s and called "Spectres."
Modifications incorporated improvements to weapons, avionics, radar and engines. The RF versions were equipped with cameras and surveillance gear for aerial reconnaissance. Armament ranged from cannons to missiles.
F-4Hs saw combat in both the Vietnam War and Operation Desert Storm and served with the air forces of 11 countries in addition to the United States. Both U.S. military flight demonstration teams, the Navy Blue Angels and the Air Force Thunderbirds, flew the Phantom II from 1969 to 1973. The 5,000th Phantom was delivered on May 24, 1978, in ceremonies that also marked the 20th anniversary of the fighter's first flight, and McDonnell Douglas delivered the last St. Louis-built Phantom II in October 1979. By 1997, approximately 1,000 were still in service around the world.
| F-4 PHANTOM SPECIFICATIONS | |
|---|---|
| First flight: | (prototype XF-4H-1) May 27, 1958 |
| Wingspan: | 38 feet 5 inches |
| Length: | 58 feet 3 inches |
| Height: | 16 feet 6 inches |
| Ceiling: | 56,100 |
| Range: | 1,750 miles |
| Weight: | 55,597 pounds |
| Power plant: | Two 17,900-pound-thrust General Electric J79-GE-17 jet engines |
| Speed: | 1,485 mph (max.) |
| Accommodation: | Two crew |
| Armament: | 15,983 pounds of weapons, including 20 mm nose-mounted M-61 "Vulcan" cannon |
