On Marc 12, 1967 McDonnell Aircraft Corporation, in St. Louis, Missouri, delivered the 2,000th F-4 Phantom II to the USAF.
AKA; The Rhino, “Double Ugly”, Ol ’Smokey, “Lead Sled” and the “St Louis Slugger” are all nicknames given to one of the most famous fighters of all time.
In recognition of its impressive history in air superiority and its high number of credited kills, the Phantom earned the title of “the world’s largest distributor of MiG parts”.
Tales of an Asia Sailor 
My father helped work on the design of that fighter; he was a wind tunnel engineer at McDonnell in the late ’50s/early ’60s.
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I left some DNA in that first F-4 #216. VF-151, USS Midway, 4/75 to 4/78.
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One of the first model aircraft I built when I was 9 years old. It looked like crap, but it was fun.
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Reblogged this on Dave Loves History.
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Fucker’s howled. My grandparents lived just east of the end of the runway at McConnel AFB in Wichita. 105s and F4s using the Ft Reilly range in prep to go to SEA. Used to like watching flight quarters the few times we were in train with a carrier.
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Remembering vultures row on CV-41 and watching these “birds” take off and land. Impressive indeed!
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