| The
biggest, fastest, most powerful fighter of its day, the McDonnell Phantom
was an awesome war machine that came to dominate aerial combat for over
two decades. It may have been the size of many World War II bombers but it
could out-perform anything that crossed its path; it was quicker, could
turn faster, was better equipped with electronics, carried more ordnance
than anything comparable, and it had an unbelievable rate of climb. The
F-4 Phantom was the benchmark against which every fighter in the world
came to be judged; it was simply the best. Robert Taylor’s powerful new
painting shows Steve Ritchie, first into action, flying his lead F-4D
Phantom through a hail of deadly enemy flak as he exits the target area
after a typical FAST FAC mission on enemy installations in North Vietnam,
1972. Behind him a vast trail of devastation marks the mission’s
progress, as his fellow Phantom crews continue to wreak havoc with their
heavy ordnance, the target area exploding in a series of mighty
detonations. |
