If you've seen Top Gun, you probably have a stereotyped image of brash and cocky fighter pilots. Boyd was just such a person, a true maverick. He wasn't just loud, he ate fast, talked fast, and poked others in the chest (including senior officers) to make a point.
"He appeared a wild man. His reputation was like the shock wave in front of an aircraft; it rode ahead of him and disturbed everyone it washed over. It left people rolling in its wake, confused and often angry."
He flew with the same abandon, pushing a plane to its limits, wanting to know what it could and could not do. The one time he had to eject led to the discovery of an undocumented design flaw in the aircraft. If someone boasted of a perfect safety record among the pilots he was training, Boyd said he was failing them.
Though Boyd was crude at times, he was also one of the best fighter pilots in the world, and after the Korean War became an instructor at Fighter Weapons School at Nellis AFB, the equivalent of the Navy's Top Gun. While there he discovered a "quick and violent maneuver" that solved the adverse yaw problem with the F-100 Super Sabre, "one of the most quirky and treacherous fighter planes in the history of the Air Force." He made a standing offer to all comers that he could reverse positions with a plane on his tail in 40 seconds. He was never defeated and became known as Forty-Second Boyd.
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| The F-100 Super Sabre |
He was also a thinking fighter pilot at a time when dogfighting was "almost a lost art in the Air Force." After Korea, the Air Force's main focus was strategic bombing, much to the disgust of fighter pilots, who thought flying a B-52 was much like driving a bus. Boyd became obsessed with quantifying the performance of a jet fighter, and developed his Aerial Attack Study, a 150-page manual that explained how, if a pilot knew the position and velocity of his opponent, he would then know what maneuvers the enemy could perform and what counter-maneuvers were available.
"Within ten years the Aerial Attack Study became the tactics manual for air forces around the world. It changed the way they flew and the way they fought. Forty years after it was written, even with the passage of the Vietnam War and the Gulf War, nothing substantial has been added to it."
The Air Force sent Boyd to university where he learned about thermodynamics and the difference between available and unavailable energy -- in other words, entropy. This enabled him to further refine his thinking and resulted in his Energy-Maneuverability Theory, which was based on thrust and drag ratios. His work showed that in many respects Soviet aircraft were superior to US aircraft. He continued to elaborate the theory after graduating, but had to do so in evenings and on weekends. He also had to "steal" computer time at the base where he was stationed, and in this he was helped by an influential friend, Tom Christie, who "flew top cover" for him. Christie was the first of several gifted loyal supporters of Boyd.
The Pentagon
Ordered there in 1966, he tried to apply his E-M theory in the development of a new fighter. The generals he briefed were rattled by what they heard, e.g. that the two primary aircraft being used in Vietnam, the F-105 Thuds and F-4 Phantoms, were inadequate, and that the F-111, which was under development at the time, had many faults. It turned out to be "one of the most scandal-ridden aircraft in US history."
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| The F-111 Aardvark, a swing-wing fighter |
Politics at the Pentagon were "byzantine and deadly." The rivalry between Air Force and Navy was intense, particularly in the area of funding, and the place was staffed with officers fearful of damaging their careers if they disagreed with superiors. Boyd faced opposition at every step, and his bullheadedness and extravagant behaviour made him many enemies. He was so intemperate in his speech and actions that to many he seemed out of control. His "manner went beyond the coarseness, the close-in spittle-flying conversations, the arm waving and loud voice, the long hair and disheveled appearance, and the nocturnal work habits." He once burned a hole in the necktie of a general with his cigar. "His behaviour bordered on insubordination."
One of his achievements was ramming through a decision to use a fixed-wing instead of a swing-wing design. "History has proven Boyd correct. The variable-sweep wing was one of the major engineering blunders of the century. Hollywood and the movie Top Gun notwithstanding, the F-14 Tomcat is a lumbering, poor-performing aerial truck." Although Boyd is acknowledged as the father of one of the finest aircraft of its type at the time, the F-15 Eagle, he remained unhappy with its weight and expense. He and a few close friends began working in secret on a new lightweight fighter, which eventually became the F-16 Falcon, another highly regarded aircraft.
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| The F-14 Tomcat, another swing-wing fighter |
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| The F-15 Eagle |
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| The F-16 Falcon, a lightweight fighter |
Patterns of Conflict
He began to study war itself, and over a span of years produced Patterns of Conflict, which was an updating of Sun Tzu and a repudiation of von Clausewitz. He praised commanders who fought at a high operational tempo and practised the rapid exploitation of opportunity." The goal was to create chaos by using ambiguity, deception, and multiple thrusts. "To attack the mind of the opponent, to unravel the commander before a battle even begins, is the essence of fighting smart." He referred to this as "maneuver warfare." At the heart of Patterns is something called the Observe-Orient-Decide-Act cycle, or the OODA Loop, which since then has been applied not just to war but any form of conflict, such as business and sports.
Meanwhile, following the war in Vietnam, the American military hit a low point and began taking hits from the press. In 1979 an article entitled "The Muscle-Bound Superpower" appeared in The Atlantic. Much of it revolved around Boyd and his Patterns of Conflict, which questioned the value of the high technology solutions so favoured by the military. This thinking was backed up by the failure in 1980 to rescue hostages in Teheran. Jim Fallows, the author of the Atlantic article, later wrote a book, National Defense, a damning indictment of the Pentagon and the defense industry, and it portrayed Boyd and his friends as Reformers who might have the solution to all that was wrong.
In 1983 Time magazine ran a piece on the military with one of Boyd's associates, Chuck Spinney, on the cover. Spinney had authored a report called "Defense Facts of Life," "one of the most important documents ever to come out of the Pentagon." It claimed that "the unnecessary complexity of major weapon systems was wrecking the military budget." Pentagon officials were in shock and the Air Force declared war on Spinney. Generals ridiculed him, and one became so over-wrought during a briefing by Spinney that he collapsed.
The Army
Another of Boyd's associates, James Burton, was put in charge of testing weapons at a time when the Bradley Fighting Vehicle was in early production, and testing was largely done by computer modelling. When Burton ordered field testing, the results were faked. "Time after time the army lied about the realism of its testing. Billions of dollars hung in the balance. Boyd told Burton, "Jim, you can't have a normal career and still do the good work. You have to decide."
The Army responded by trying to transfer Burton to Alaska and changing his position description. When reporters got wind of what was happening and a Congressional hearing announced, Burton was told that everything he planned to say was classified. By then Burton was worn out and retired. Later he wrote a book about it called The Pentagon Wars, which was subsequently turned into a film of the same name. (As of the date of this review, the film is streaming on Crave.)
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| The Bradley Fighting Vehicle |
The Marines
Boyd's name became anathema at the Pentagon, and the Air Force did its best to bury him. He was spied upon, given poor performance appraisals, and passed over for promotion. Only the Marines embraced him wholeheartedly.
"No two branches of the American military are farther apart than the Air Force and Marines... The Air Force is a technocracy while the Marines are a warrior culture... Marines are utterly contemptuous of the Air Force." Boyd became a regular lecturer at the Marine Corps and took an active part in tactics classes, emphasizing fluid and fast-moving tactics that disrupted enemy thinking. Marines were instructed to bypass resistance, and to use multiple thrusts and ambiguity to confuse the enemy. The Marine Corps became the most intellectual branch of the US military.
When Boyd died, the Air Force "all but ignored his passing," while at his funeral the Marines were conspicuous by their presence. "Placing the symbol of the US Marine Corps on a grave is the highest honour a Marine can bestow. It is rarely seen, even at the funeral of a decorated combat Marine."
Further Reading
- Hammond, Grant. 2012. The Mind of War: John Boyd and American Security
- Richard, Chester. 2004. Certain To Win: The Strategy of John Boyd Applied to Business
- Robinson, Stephen. 2021. The Blind Strategist: John Boyd and the American Art of War
