The F4 Phantom was a good aircraft in it`s time but early versions had a few peculiarities that needed to be sorted out. Here I`ve depicted a Navy F4B of the Vf-92 "Silver Kings" Squadron flying from the USS Constellation as it would have appeared during the Vietnam Conflict. The Navy F4B differed from the Air Force F4C version in that it had a significantly shortened nose cone to facilitate lifting on Carrier elevators (The Air Force received the F4C which was effectively identical to the F4B but with a longer nose and different electronics).

The early J-79 engines provided for the Phantom were very powerful, but the re-burners generated large smoke trails at mid-throttle/cruise settings making it easy to spot the aircraft in flight. This was later solved by upgrading the engines with a smokeless combustor which cleanly burned fuel in the exhaust.

The F4 also had an unusual flight controls set-up, instead of Ailerons to control the roll of the A/C the F4 had a combination of Flaperons (Ailerons that had a down only position and could be combined with the flaps for extra lift with heavy loads) and upper wing surface Spoilers. During certain types of ACM the Spoilers would be rendered ineffective due to angle of attack and it became necessary to do a Rudder Roll instead, how-ever this meant that the aircraft suffered from adverse yaw during hard maneuvering. Eventually the F4 was re-fitted with leading edge slats to help improve maneuverability and handling at high angles of attack (Navy F4B`s given these upgrades were redesignated F4N`s) . The Phantom also had one of the first Boundary Air Layer control systems to aid in low speed flight handling.

Until the F4E, the Phantom also had no internal gun, and instead had to mount an external gun pod (doctrine at the time had held that in supersonic combat a gun would be unnecessary). When the heat-seeking and radar guided missiles of the day were found to be less than stellar in combat, the Phantom began carrying the SUU-16 and then the SUU-23 20mm Gun Pods. Unfortunately these guns were rendered less than accurate on early aircraft due to the lack of a lead-computing gun sight (this was somewhat improved when the SUU-23 was equipped with the needed gun sights).

Despite early teething problems the Phantom was said to have been very responsive and easy to fly even at the edge of its flight envelope. It also held numerous world records including the World Speed Record and a Zoom Climb Record (amongst others). It could carry 18,000lbs of external stores, double the load of a WW2 B-17, and had numerous upgrades and improvements made during it`s service life.

The F4B was accepted by the Navy in 1961, and the F4C by the Air Force in 1963 (The original F4A`s never saw service due to many technical issues meaning the F4B was the first actual service variant). Phantoms remain in service in many countries to this day, but were officially retired from US production in 1979, and from service with US Forces in 1996, after over 30 years of continuous combat service. A number of F4`s have remained in US service converted to use as Remote Target Drones...