Flying Brick. Lead Sled. Rhino. Double Ugly. If nicknames are destiny, then the F-4 Phantom II fighter was cursed at birth.

Even its official name was ironic. “Phantom” evokes an image of stealth and subtlety, a supernatural nemesis that strikes without warning. But the F-4 was anything but stealthy or subtle; it was a big fighter that muscled its way through combat.

Along the way, it became one of the most influential aircraft in history.

Through the tense Cold War years of the 1960s and 1970s, the Phantom was the symbol of Western tactical airpower. Between 1958 and 1981, 5,195 Phantoms were built in a dozen variants and flown by a dozen nations, making it the most prolific supersonic American warplane ever built.

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“The Phantom has become, arguably, the most important fighter aircraft of the second half of the twentieth century,” aviation historian Robert Dorr writes in his 1989 book, The McDonnell F-4 Phantom. More than 60 years after its first flight, the F-4 still flies in several air forces around the world.

Read more: Popular Mechanics