Introduction

The following introduction is as supplied by Pen and Sword:

The McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II was the most-produced American supersonic military jet with 5,195 aircraft being produced. By any standards the F-4 has been incredibly successful, used not only by the USAF and US Navy but many air forces around the world including Germany, Israel, Turkey and Japan.

The F-4 was designed as a long-range fighter interceptor and fighter bomber, excellent in all roles assigned to it. The Phantom has performed leading roles in multiple conflicts around the world from the Vietnam War through to the Gulf War. Although the F-4 left US service in 1996 it has continued in service with other air forces, only just being retired in 2020 from the Japanese Air Self-Defence Force.

This new title in Pen & Sword's highly successful Flight Craft series covers the development and operational use of the F-4 Phantom II and brings to life the variety of colour schemes and markings applied by many of the multiple air arms that have operated the Phantom around the world by including quality colour profiles.

Multiple model projects are included covering significant variants of the F-4 like the F-4B, F-4D, F-4E, F-4F, F-4G, F-4J, F-4EJ-Kai; British FGR-2 and F-4J(UK). All the popular model scales are represented: 1:72, 1:48 and 1:32A first for scale modellers everywhere – a book aimed at scale modellers of all levels interested in building the F-4 Phantom II.

Review

This offering from Pen and Sword covering the McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom is part of the Flight Craft series of books. This title is authored by Geoff Coughlin who does not have any other titles accredited to him by Pen and Sword. This is a soft backed book with a card cover protecting the 96 pages inside, if memory serves that means this title offers 50% more pages than are usually found in these titles.

The contents of this title are as follows:

Introduction

Design & Development

F-4 in Foreign Service

Camouflage & Markings

Modelling the F-4 Phantom II

Further Reading & Bibliography

The table of contents listed for this title do mean that I need to say that covering aspects of the McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom in a book of this size is impossible no matter how good or hard the author is or tries. The result of the written content covering aspects of this aircraft is what I would call a great look at the highlights and a brief when it comes to many aspects of the aircraft and its service life. It does need to be remembered that this book series has I believe the intention of providing the reader a general reference title combined with a modelling section and some great drawings to get the juices and ideas flowing when it comes to how to finish a model.

The drawings of the various Phantoms are very visually appealing, at least to me they are. The drawings cover aircraft serving with many different nations and so the author cannot be said to favour one country of another. The photographs in the book cover some very iconic livery finishes including for example the Alcock and Brown livery is featured and a reasonable amount of detail provided in the text, but the caption is light in my opinion.

The modelling section is a very good inclusion in this title as more depth has been gone into where the finished models are concerned. No less than thirteen aircraft are finished in the specifically built models and I wish to also commend the author for placing the section in a specific area of the title rather than in the middle of a written section which is an aspect I have had issue with previously. The title then comes to an end with a short walk around which is the only area where I would have liked to see more content.

Conclusion

This offering is one of the most appealing I have looked through as it covers an aircraft that covers so many countries and this also greatly increases the various looks that can be achieved by the modeller with an off the shelf kit. The layout of the title with specific areas clearly defined is an aspect I greatly approve of and I hope this author dips his toes in the water a lot more.