The air force had rejected the idea of using Phantoms in the Daily Mail race, but the Fleet Air Arm decided otherwise
When the Daily Mail announced, on 26 April 1968, its intention to stage a Trans-Atlantic Air Race almost exactly one year later, the first Phantom FG1 for the Royal Navy had not yet been delivered to the UK. That event would occur just three days later, on 29 April, when three aircraft touched down at RNAS Yeovilton. Initial Phantom deliveries were to 700P Naval Air Squadron, the Intensive Flying Trials Unit, whose brief it was to fly the new machine for several hundred hours and to build experience on the type. With its task completed, it would disband and its air and groundcrews would form the nucleus of 892 NAS, which was to be the RN’s only front-line Phantom squadron.
