John Boyd, opinions? (1 Viewer)

Ad: This forum contains affiliate links to products on Amazon and eBay. More information in Terms and rules

Victory:

You are correct in just about all areas describing Boyd, particularly as a husband & more so as a father. Insofar as what the book has described him, he wasn't physically abusive but his absence from his family coupled with his disdain for things he considered luxury, when oftentimes they were actually a necessity, really took its toil. His house was a small ramshackle place in a bad neighborhood & he professed ignorance at what was taking place in the family when his own world was flying & theory.

Note: I mentioned "the" family instead of using the proper syntax "his" family because it was exactly as how he treated them. He professed his puzzlement about youngest daughter whom he called "snookem" when she turned to drugs & went downhill fast & violently took her actions against him. Yet despite please from his wife to do something, John just turned he back & went to work as if nothing had happened.

His theories & codes were at farsighted, at least in his time, which were well over 50 years ago. True, Navy & Air Force were dogfighting for years & the kill ratio fell dismally low during the Viet Nam War. As the book described it, very little was done about it.

As it was stated " the air force pilots were turning & learning" wasn't all that cut out to be. If they were truly learning as they were turning the kill ratio would ( or at least should ) be different.

The overstatement of John as 40-second Boyd may have been true, but it was backed up by countless witnesses & was well documented. So there has to be some validity somewhere.

The "blue suiters" as John so disdainfully put it, loved to add systems to an otherwise clean design & just as well continue managing their careers to retirement.

The F-111 Aardvark program, a plane that was shoved down the Navy's throat was a very good example of the blue suiters & McNamara's "Wiz Kids" & their collective actions.

John said it best when asked his opinion on the swing-wing bomber: "Just rip the wings off, give it a bench seat in the back & paint it yellow."

In his later years, McNamara admitted his mistakes in forcing the services to accept a multipurpose aircraft that could do a "little bit of everything but accomplished nothing."

If the Marines were the only service to accord John the honors of a soldier, then so be it. One must remember that at the time of John's passing he was a civilian.
 
Boyd was so obsessed with his thrower, he simply ignored the reality that it was political restrictions that limited the effect of USAF and USN fighters over Vietnam.
When the gloves were taken off, they had no problem swatting f=down the MiGs.
 
His theories & codes were at farsighted, at least in his time, which were well over 50 years ago. True, Navy & Air Force were dogfighting for years & the kill ratio fell dismally low during the Viet Nam War. As the book described it, very little was done about it.



The overstatement of John as 40-second Boyd may have been true, but it was backed up by countless witnesses & was well documented. So there has to be some validity somewhere.



The F-111 Aardvark program, a plane that was shoved down the Navy's throat was a very good example of the blue suiters & McNamara's "Wiz Kids" & their collective actions.

John said it best when asked his opinion on the swing-wing bomber: "Just rip the wings off, give it a bench seat in the back & paint it yellow."

In his later years, McNamara admitted his mistakes in forcing the services to accept a multipurpose aircraft that could do a "little bit of everything but accomplished nothing."

Little was done about it? Not in the USN. The Ault Report was commissioned resulting in NFWS. A lot was being done about it at every level. The problem is that the lay person isn't aware of the way things work. So much of the issues in SEA were caused by VID requirements and poor tactics that came from above. The services were hamstrung on employing ways to get around it. TCS/TSEO and NCTR resulted, both of which Boyd would have mocked. He trended towards obstinance, probably due to this hatred of Generals and Staff Officers. The Pentagon political realm is a good place to lose your soul.

The 40 second Boyd deal is just another BS story that gets passed along by people who have no way to confirm it. I'm sure he could beat some rookie who didn't know what they were doing.

The F111 mess was being opposed by thousands of Naval Officers across the spectrum. Boyd was merely another voice.
Boyd's mindset was simple in a lot of ways. Reduce complexity, fund and field superior numbers, overwhelm the enemy while taking your losses. Similar to the Cold War Soviet mindset it a lot of ways.

The problem in the cockpit is that you need good systems that give you SA so you dominate the OODA process, That's what bloggers and media don't understand about the F35. Boyd would have hated it, based on Pierre Sprey's, who has never flown a fighter much less under combat conditions, ridiculous comments about the aircraft.

The HM theory was very useful as a tool for basic maneuvering comparison to develop a basic game plan. It's become a holy grail for folks who don't fly airplanes, and have a tendency to view things from a 1v1 perspective. Today, a lot of Boyd's biases have been voided by the advent of EID methodology and reliable radars and weapons. It's a different world that wouldn't exist had industry followed Boyd's precepts.
 
Hunter111:

I tend to agree on just about everything you said. It sounds like you're speaking from experience so you'll get no argument from me here.
 
Acheron: Rutowski wrote a paper while at Douglas, but his application was time to climb performance for general aircraft usage and therefore economize the required fuel to get to altitude. Boyd took that general approach and applied it to all axis while in combat.
Yeah, the basic concept for climb performance and sustained maneuverability are based on power available versus power required and revolve around excess power for this process.
 
Interesting thread, and yes I have read Boyd's book. I'm familiar with the EM diagrams (for fighter aircraft), particularly the F15, F16, F14, and F18. I may have seen charts for airplanes built by "other" nations. In my opinion one should take everything with a grain of salt, and that applies to Boyd as well. His EM charts are a great thing, and it allows a fighter pilot, or aircraft designer, "see" how an airplane gains, holds, or loses energy. The pilot to understand where his jet is superior (safer to fight in this regime) or not (areas to stay away from). The designer to know what his last designs were deficient in, or what he has to do better than our adversaries.

As for the 40 seconds, from my understanding he would over G / depart the F-100 doing some canned maneuver he had mastered. If you can do something your opponent can't or won't, it's an advantage.

Also, even pioneers don't get everything "right", however they do stretch or expand the current envelope.

My last Operations Group Commander OG/CC on Active Duty was Col Dave Deptula. He was instrumental in Desert Storm planning and execution (as a Lt Col). His boss was removed, and without skipping a beat he picked up the ball and ran with it. He is a fan of Boyds, and has mentioned him plenty of times in conversations. The following two links are about General Dave "Zatar" Deptula. He is also currently the Dean of the Mitchell Institute. For those who have read Boyds book, or any of his writings you should see something of the philosophy in the second link.

Cheers,
Biff


 
The F-111 Aardvark program, a plane that was shoved down the Navy's throat was a very good example of the blue suiters & McNamara's "Wiz Kids" & their collective actions.
The F-111 story was fascinating and ended up becoming a circus. It kind of had to do with the USN & USAF coming up with two different requirements that McNamara's Whiz Kids ended up combining into one specification.
John said it best when asked his opinion on the swing-wing bomber: "Just rip the wings off, give it a bench seat in the back & paint it yellow."
I think that had to do with the aircraft's Ps figures being inferior to all aircraft in the USAF inventory.
In his later years, McNamara admitted his mistakes in forcing the services to accept a multipurpose aircraft that could do a "little bit of everything but accomplished nothing."
I didn't know he said that, but it indicated more maturity.
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Back