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Forty Second Boyd
- Forty Second Boyd
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Forty Second Boyd
Vincent Massi > 08-16-2016, 04:44 PM
FORTY SECOND BOYD
What? You’ve never heard of John Boyd, an unsaved US Air Force fighter pilot who never shot down a plane? But in practice drills he repeatedly “bounced” his opponents in less than forty seconds.
If you are able to approach an enemy fighter, undetected until you have a very strong position, you have bounced him. Proving his point with obsolete jets, Boyd repeatedly bounced America’s most successful fighter pilots. He cheerfully explained how he did it, and then he would go up and bounce them again.
He was one of the designers of the F-15, which has never lost a dogfight, and the chief designer of the F-16. He designed the strategy for the successful invasion of Grenada and the rapid defeat of Saddam Hussein.
Boyd taught three major principles, with various subsets for specific situations. And while it is too late to do much good, those three principles explain the IFB movement. -
RE: Forty Second Boyd
DeepSix > 08-17-2016, 01:07 AM
Vincent - You appear to be a man of many assumptions.
I ignore most of them. But this time you have made a few too many, some fairly egregious.. and all in a single post.
For one, I have not only heard of John Boyd but I once met him personally.
A retired USAF Colonel I worked for in the late 1970s and early 80s - who was an ace fighter pilot himself - served in WW2, Korea and also Vietnam - then also went on to fly the U2 spy plane for U.S. Intelligence, introduced me to John Boyd shortly after I went to work for him. He was indeed a great American and contributed much to the United States military that helped make it successful in recent wars. And he is far from being an unknown to some of us.
Secondly, I don't know how you can say with such certainty that the man was not saved. The man who introduced me to Boyd was a Christian and the two of them were life long friends. Now, granted that might not be enough for me to say with conviction that I know he was saved. But the simple fact that I didn't hear him declare it is not enough for me to assume that he wasn't saved either. Personally I don't feel qualified to make that kind of judgement regarding John Boyd's standing with God. Do you? Have you read something, or do you have some other knowledge about him that would indicate he was not a Christian?
Thirdly, You are correct (if that is what you meant) that the mighty F-15 Eagle was never shot down by another plane in combat - but it was defeated in aerial mock combat during joint maneuvers and war games on more than one occasion. Exercises of mock aerial combat are still considered dogfighting in that their specific purpose is teaching and developing dogfighting skills.
One of the more famous examples of the F-15 losing during such an exercise happened not long after the F-15 first went into service, when a pair flying cover for each other were defeated in the air by a pair of British Harriers at the very same combat flight school known as Red Flag that John Boyd helped establish. That incident is actually credited with convincing the USAF to consider developing it's own S&VTOL combat jet fighters. And 35 years later we now have one. But for a while some Marine Corps air wings began using the AV8 Harrier themselves. Though they never had the success with them the British had.
And finally - There are still many IFB churches out there that are doing just fine. They are not "moving', nor are they a "movement". But they are none the less steadily and faithfully serving God. However, if you are referring to the specific sect of IFB that was under the influence of Jack Hyles and company from the 1960s to it's recent demise - then that "movement" all fell apart because it left being an instrument in the service of God and became a cult of man worshippers. Taken there by the very man who desired to be the primary focus of that worship - Jack F Hyles himself.
Little by little those still entrenched in the ditches and under the banners that Jack Hyles dug and erected in his name, are beginning to look at themselves and wonder what it is they have been a part of. And many are moving on to other places and other real ministries where they can put the mistake of Hyles-ism behind them. But some still hold their ground and continue to stir the koolaide, wondering with bewilderment why fewer and fewer people seem willing to drink it. Or going to great lengths trying to analyze it and figure out why people say the thing they thought was so sweet in the past has suddenly gone sour.
Step away from the koolaide. It was never the real problem in the first place. It was nothing but the poison served up by the people who were the real problem. And for a little while they deceived a lot of us. -
RE: Forty Second Boyd
Vincent Massi > 08-17-2016, 03:59 AM
That's a good, intelligent post, Deep Six. And while I quibble with your interpretation of my meaning, I appreciate your courtesy. -
RE: Forty Second Boyd
Vincent Massi > 08-17-2016, 01:07 PM
Forty Second Boyd Part 2
Desperately trying to keep up with superior Soviet technology, the US Air Force produced the F100 series of fighter jets. Manufactured for a short time, each jet was quickly replaced with a better one. And John Boyd was able to get the older jets for practice. Developing his theories, he easily defeated the best pilots in the newer jets. Even when his opponents knew where he was, Boyd could usually bounce them in less than forty seconds.
Boyd explained that his method allowed him to change the situation so fast that his opponent was still dealing with a situation that no longer existed. This was only a subset of his three major principles, but it showed the importance of dealing with reality.
Boyd’s opponents were dealing with past reality; Boyd was dealing with current reality. That’s why he won. -
RE: Forty Second Boyd
DeepSix > 08-17-2016, 08:09 PM
I have always loved the old F-100 Super Sabre. I think it is because the first time I ever saw the USAF Thunderbirds they were still flying it.
The way I remember it John Boyd continued to fly the F-100 against other rookie U.S. pilots in training missions at the Air Force's Red Flag fighter weapons school, because he simply did not like it's replacement - the F-4 Phantom.
For instance - Boyd was invited to the U.S. Navy's fighter weapons school Top Gun during the Vietnam War to talk about his tactical theories. At the school he told one of the classes it was absolutely impossible for an F-4 Phantom to win a dogfight against a MIG-17. Little did he know there were two pilots in that very classroom who had already defeated and shot down MIG-17s while flying F-4s. From the way the story is told he continued to argue that he was right even after being shown proof of what those Navy pilots claimed.
That incident illustrated pretty well the short comings of relying on theory, charts, graphs and practice flights alone to train pilots - without the added input of veteran combat pilots who had actually tested dogfighting theories in the air, against real enemies, with their lives on the line.
It also illustrated that while John Boyd was indeed one of Americas greatest military aviators he was in no way perfect. And neither were his theories. They were only as valuable, - and all educated theories are subject to this, - as far as they could be evaluated and compared against real world experience. And they become useless if the originator of those theories can't bring himself to admit there might be a few flaws in them, and make adjustments accordingly.
John Boyds insistence that he was right even in the face of two veteran pilots who had actually blooded the enemy in combat is one of the things that earned him yet another nickname - The Mad Major.
You might say the Top Gun incident was an example of where John Boyd found himself dealing with a past reality rather than having the flexibility to face the current one.
But no worries. It happens to even the best of us at times.
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RE: Forty Second Boyd
Vincent Massi > 08-18-2016, 01:15 AM
Forty Second Boyd Part 3
After World War 1, the US built heavily-armed fighters with powerful motors. The Japanese built faster, lighter, more-maneuverable fighters with a lot less armor than American planes had. And so they produced the Japanese Zero, the greatest fighter the world had ever seen.
When a Zero got behind a US plane, the American pilot simply could not outmaneuver his opponent . But the US developed a new tactic. The American would cut his engine as low as possible. His heavier plane would slow rapidly and drop rapidly. The Zero would speed overhead, and then the American, with his heavier guns, could fire away at his lightly-armored opponent. This propeller-plane tactic was so successful, that the US carried it into the supersonic jet age.
In 1960, the US introduced the Phantom, a fighter so successful that it was our main fighter for 16 years. But when a missile-armed MIG got behind a Phantom, the old tactic didn’t work. The fact that the Communist pilot already knew the US tactic didn’t help any.
John Boyd angered Pentagon officials by showing that a bounced Phantom needed to perform a risky maneuver to fall rapidly out of the sky on its side, and then escape. This new maneuver was so dangerous that it was forbidden.
But Boyd kept explaining his new tactic. And then, one day, four MIGS bounced four Phantoms over North Vietnam. Two Phantoms were shot down and two escaped. When the surviving pilots confessed that they had used Boyd’s illegal maneuver, and the US adopted it.
John Boyd taught the Air Force to grasp reality: a successful old tactic did not work any more. -
RE: Forty Second Boyd
DeepSix > 08-18-2016, 06:34 PM
Just out of curiosity Vincent, How long have you been studying aerial combat tactics?
Is there anything you can tell us on this subject that you didn't get directly out of a John Boyd autobiography?
Nobody denies that John Boyd made valuable contributions to the success of U.S. airpower in the last half of the 20th century. But he was also considered by many to be a shameless self promoter who often embellished his record and exaggerated both the accounts and the importance of his achievements.
Have you ever wondered why most military historians are reluctant to mention John Boyd in their writings, and others simply ignore him altogether?
It is because once you begin to go down that road of embellishing your own record - and you get caught at it, - it casts a shadow over the reports of all your other achievements as well, - whether embellished or not, - and calls them into question.
Take Chris Kyle for example. A few years ago he was the talk of the whole country. A real American hero everybody could admire and look up to. The really tragic part of his story is that he could and should, still be that hero. But once it was discovered he had exaggerated the number of medals he won in combat, and that he had actually lied in his autobiography when he claimed he punched out Jessie Ventura in a bar fight, people stopped talking about him. They began to wonder if even the authenticated parts of his story were true.
And that is the problem with stories such as the one you just recounted concerning 4 MIG 21s ambushing a flight of 4 F-4 Phantoms and the way they were handled, whether in part or in whole, in the the John Boyd versions of the story. He was the only one who seemed to remember those kinds of accounts in the way that he told them. And if a military tactic was re-written because someone took banned advice he offered them, he seemed to be the only one who knew about that too.
Check other sources and you will find that many of the stories and legends surrounding John Boyd are highly disputed not only by military historians but also by some of the people who served with him in the military and knew him personally.
Fact is.. and you can check this out if you will do some reading about the aerial war in vietnam from a source not connected to boyd.. the tactic F-4 pilots used successfully most often in Vietnam to defeat missile equipped MIG-21s in the air was to use the F-4s superior speed and power to climb up and away from the much more nimble MIG, then turn and come back down on it from above and behind it. And that was whether the encounter was a surprise or not.
Cutting power in a jet like the F-4 during a combat engagement is suicidal. It risks stalling the aircraft and sending it into an uncontrolled dive. And falling away or intentionally diving when being chased by a fighter equipped with guns and as nimble as the MIG-21 was is equally suicidal. But sometimes the unexpected happens and the unconventional ends up working even with the odds stacked against it. But examples of such incidents should be looked at as rare and very fortunate exceptions.. Not taken as the rule.
I not only learned that from reading about this subject for years but also from one of my cousins who was a Navy Radar Intercept Officer and flew in the back seat of an F-4 Phantom in Vietnam. According to him Israeli pilots were among those who helped American F-4 pilots learn to effectively dogfight MIG-21s. Israelis had been dogfighting Syrian and Egyptian MIGs with Mirage jet fighters for years before American pilots encountered them in Vietnam. Later when the Israelis acquired F-4 Phantoms of their own they became the go to authority in the opinions of many on how best to use that fighter jet against MIGs as well.
If you really wanted to demonstrate some of the failures of the Hylesite Fundamentalist Movement and use John Boyd to do it, that might be a better way to go with it. Show the similarities between the two men, Jack Hyles and John Boyd, both of whom exaggerated their accomplishments, and study the effect that had on how people see them today.
Just a suggestion,
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RE: Forty Second Boyd
The Rogue Tomato > 08-18-2016, 08:05 PM
Forty Second Boyd... is this another Olympics thread?
Dere were toity twee poyple boyds sittin on a coyb, choypin and boypin and eatin' doity li'l woims. -
RE: Forty Second Boyd
Vincent Massi > 08-18-2016, 11:24 PM
John Boyd 4
Exiled to the Department of Strategic Planning, John Boyd infuriated high-ranking military officials by blaming the generals for losing the War in Vietnam. He accused them of using successful WW2 tactics that hadn’t applied to Vietnam, and he insisted that they were continuing the same mistake.
Boyd taught that instead of a steady front-line advance that attacked from one direction, the US should use fast helicopters to land troops that would attack the enemy from different directions. And when low-flying helicopters could get through air defenses designed for high-altitude bombers, they should do so. No one except the Marines listened to him. And they practiced it and found that it worked.
When Communists seized Grenada, the US invaded. Several hours later, Marines had captured half the island. Following Boyd’s methods, helicopter-born Army Rangers had quickly captured a major airport. Meanwhile, three large Army forces, using traditional methods, were still in their landing areas.
Then the Army adopted Boyd’s methods. John Boyd grasped reality: the front-line advance had worked well for centuries, but fast-flying helicopters had made it obsolete.
PS to Aleshanee: Loved the photo! Years ago, I saw an F-18 enter a drag race against a champion. The F-18 won, but it was close. -
RE: Forty Second Boyd
Vincent Massi > 08-19-2016, 01:46 AM
I enjoyed your post and picture, Aleshanee. Despite a couple of decades as a military buff, I had never heard of John Boyd either. He held strongly that we should build cheap, short-term fighters and then replace them within a few years with better ones--that's the strategy that we used in the 1950's. He was a noted opponent of the F-4 Phantom. He strongly opposed the improvements made to his original F-16, which made it better but more expensive. However, by the 1960's, both the US and the USSR were concentrating on expensive jets that could be upgraded for decades.
But the most amazing thing I learned from John Boyd is his three main principles, which explain MUCH of what went wrong with HAC ,the IFBs, and Bible colleges in general. I'm giving his credentials first, though.