The F-4 is undoubtedly one of the most important military aircraft in history. The Phantom first took flight in 1958 and quickly set 25 world records in categories like speed (Mach 2.6) and altitude. A total of 5,195 Phantoms were built from 1958 to 1981, making it the most-produced American supersonic military aircraft ever, and a signature combat aircraft of the Cold War. Alongside the American Armed Forces, the McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II also served as a primary combat aircraft for the UK's Royal Navy (RN) and Royal Air Force (RAF) from 1968 to 1992, modified with Rolls-Royce Spey engines. It was primarily intended for fleet air defence, with secondary conventional and nuclear strike roles, and by the mid-1970s, the Phantom had become the UK's principal interceptor; it continued in this role until 1992, when it was withdrawn as part of a series of post-Cold War defence cuts. In this book, Allen Jackson, who worked on the RAF British version of the Phantom jet fighter bomber for five years, in both the UK and Germany, not long after the type's inception into RAF service, describes what the RAF and RN's Phantoms were in terms of their US antecedents and the political reasons for their separate existence.