If you are a real enthusiast about a subject, then there are times when you look for specific information on whatever you are researching. In the case of aviation enthusiasts, you may well want to know stats on a specific aircraft. Things like when it was built, any mods done to it, what happened to it and similar information.

Over the decades, the F-4 has had a lot of information presented on it. I have a number of smaller booklets that cover things like RF-4 losses in South East Asia, another on which ones are MiG killers, a listing of those converted to drones, another than lists all the F-4Ds and the units in which they served and so on. Typical of many of you, these are scattered all over the place and finding them when needed is always a challenge.

Bill Peake has decided to take all that he could find about the F-4 Phantom II and put them into a single source book. This is not something that happens overnight and certainly isn't an endeavor that can be done by ones self. Over the last 10-20 years, information has been gathered from a number of different sources and from several individuals. What has resulted is by far the best data book yet done on an aircraft that thousands of us consider to be one of the finest aircraft ever to take to the skies; the F-4 Phantom II.

While I'm sure that there are folks who will sit down and just browse through it, this is really a book to be used over and over again. The author has divided the book into several sections:

1. Ship Number List
2. Mission Design Series (MDS) List
3. MASDAC Storage List
4. Battle Damage Repair Aircraft List
5. Display Aircraft
6. Attrition Lists
7. Aerial Combat Victory List (US)
8. F-4 Phantom Units

The bulk of the book is section 2. In this section is listed each aircraft by block number, serial, constructor number, attrition/retirement , write-off cause, current unit/retirement location, disposition and a section for notes. If an aircraft was modified, it is listed in both the original and the modified section. In the case of an F-4B that was modified to an F-4N and later to a QF-4N, it would be in there three times. The MASDAC Storage list is only current as of May 2001 as the folks at AMARC were worried that such info would be useful to terrorists so stopped providing that data. I find it difficult to see how this info would be of use to terrorists.

When compiling a reference like this, one has to consider just how to arrange the information. As with any database, you have to key on something and the author has chosen to key on serial number. It is a choice that had to be made early and the result works fairly well. Most of us do our research by serial and so it makes logical sense. Having said that, I would have liked to have seen a couple of sections added that did not include a serial sequence, such as a drone and MASCAC listing by inventory number. Maybe not super useful, but it would have been nice. 

I would also have liked to have seen a small individual history of each aircraft by unit. This would have been of immense help when researching images and helping to pin down a specific date that the image was taken. However, this is not given, the author stating that to do so would have resulted in a much larger reference and would have been incomplete, especially when dealing with aircraft operated by Israel and some other countries. While I can fully understand the reasoning, it would have added a lot to the book. Perhaps an individual airframe history would be possible in another book or series of books. The final thing I'd have liked to have seen would be a column in the F-4 Units section that listed Tail Codes and band/fin colors for USAF Phantoms. This would have been quite easy to include and perhaps it will be added to the next edition.

Just to add some spice, there are over 150 color photographs of various F-4s from around the world in two large sections in the middle and end of the book. The vast majority of the images are post-Vietnam aircraft and include a sampling of display planes.

Overall, this is an outstanding reference, one that I have already found extremely useful already. This one has my highest recommendation.

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