Fred Parsons flew a commercial 747 for American Airlines. The big Boeing was a handsome plane, predictable, steady and recently upgraded with every bell and whistle the Seattle wizards could stuff into the cockpit. She was everything the FAA and a travel agent could want in an airliner. Which meant she was boring as hell. The G model F-4 Phantom he was hot-sticking had more miles on her than a fleet of Greyhound buses. Smoke poured out of her tail thicker than a wet barbecue, making her easy to spot at a distance. In full-afterburner go-for-it mode she could top the sound barrier, but the Vietnam-era mainstay couldn’t come close to matching the top end of an Eagle or even the Grumman Tomcat, her Navy successor. This particular plane also had a tendency to drag her left wing— not so much that the maintenance crew could figure out what the hell it was, but enough so the pilot felt it on a hard-butt turn. He loved it. Never very good as a twisty-turny hot rod, the Phantom hailed from an era when designers first realized missiles and beyond-visual range tactics were the way to go in a dogfight.
