This all-weather, long range fighter jet was one of the most versatile fighters ever built. Between 1958 and 1979, McDonnel Douglas produced just over 5,000 Phantoms in St. Louis. A year after its first flight, the F-4 was the U.S. Navy’s fastest and highest-flying fighter. In 1959, its prototype set the world altitude record at 98,556 feet (nearly 19 miles), and in 1961 a Phantom set the world speed record at 1,604 mph, more than twice the speed of sound.
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