F-4 Phantom II: NASA’s Versatile Sky Laboratory for Aerodynamics and Sonic Booms

NASA’s Flight Research Center used variants of the McDonnell F-4 Phantom II from 1965 to the mid-1980s for a range of research, including biomedical monitoring flights with instrumented pilots (and monkeys), sonic-boom experiments near Ely, Nevada, and later spanwise blowing studies on the F-4C to probe boundary-layer control and lift, illustrating the aircraft’s versatility before returning to the U.S. Air Force.