Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War

by Robert Coram

Then Boyd’s uncanny ability to look ahead and plan move and countermove gave him another thought. If high-tech equipment was not going to work on the F-15 and if performance criteria were not going to be met, wasn’t it possible that the Navy’s F-14 was facing the same problems? And if so, might not the Navy be thinking of an alternative to the F-14? Riccioni drafted a memo to a general in charge of Research and Development and dangled the threat of a small, high-performance Navy aircraft. Nothing galvanized an Air Force general more than being told the Navy was on his six. The general told Riccioni to press on. Boyd laughed. “We don’t care what the Russians are doing. We only care about what the Navy is doing.”