Back to the Phantom...
The first couple of posts on this thread frustrated me, as I have the books mentioned: the Robert Prest book, Phantom from the cockpit and - quite recently - the Trotti book, but I knew that I had another relevant F4 book somewhere on one of my bookshelves.... I've finally found it: Fly no More by Brian Davies describes the development, evaluation and introduction to service of the Spey engined F4K - and a very sorry tale it was too. He also flew the F4 in the transatlantic race in 1969. Plenty in there too about testing Scimitars, Sea Vixens, Buccaneers etc, and an embarrassing sequence when he managed to taxi a Gannet into a Vulcan - unfortunately the one that had been comprehensively rewired for Blue Steel development
See, it's true: every vaguely nostalgic thread MUST include a Vulcan story!
Although I was never privileged to fly a Phanton, I can't say it was ever one of my favourite FJ's. Only last month I read an article in Flight Journal describing some lethal handling characteristics that killed far too many crews