Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War

by Robert Coram

Another contractor sent in its top engineer, a world-famous designer who had sold an extraordinary series of aircraft to the U.S. government, to make a bid for the proposed new fighter. The engineer presented a set of generalized plans with no supporting data. The aerodynamic estimates were broad and vague. The lift versus drag curves were wildly optimistic. Boyd realized the design was not for a new aircraft but simply an upgrade of an existing airplane. The designer was giving Boyd what he thought the Air Force needed and not what Boyd wanted. The contractor apparently thought Boyd would be awed by the famous designer. Boyd loved to tell the story of what happened. He looked at the drag curves and shook his head in apparent awe. “This is amazing,” he said. “I just can’t believe this.” The designer smiled. His retinue of engineers smiled. The famous John Boyd, for all of his reputation from E-M, was still a fighter pilot. And fighter pilots are easy to confuse when they are out of the cockpit. Boyd leaned over the lift and drag chart and his fingers moved to the left, beyond the edges of the chart. He looked up, wide-eyed. “I can extrapolate this thing back to where the wing has zero lift. Wow. This airplane is so good that not only does it have zero lift, it has negative drag.” The designer no longer was smiling. Perhaps he had underestimated this Colonel Boyd. Perhaps he should have spent more time on the design. Boyd was only warming to his subject. “If this thing has ...

Balonium