John Boyd (military strategist)

John Richard Boyd (January 23, 1927 – March 9, 1997) was a United States Air Force fighter pilot and Pentagon consultant during the second half of the 20th century.

His theories have been highly influential in military, business, and litigation strategies and planning.

As part of the Fighter Mafia, Boyd inspired the Lightweight Fighter program (LWF), which produced the General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon and preceded McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet.

Boyd, together with Thomas Christie, created the Energy–Maneuverability theory of aerial combat, which became the world standard for the design of fighter aircraft.

He also developed the decision cycle known as the OODA loop, the process by which an entity reacts to an event.

Boyd was born on January 23, 1927, in Erie, Pennsylvania.

He was one of five children born to Elsie Beyer Boyd and Hubert Boyd.

Hubert was raised Catholic and Elsie was a German Presbyterian.

Boyd enlisted in the Army Air Forces on October 30, 1944, while he was still a junior in high school.

After graduation, he completed his basic training and skill training as an aircraft turret mechanic during the waning months of World War II.

From January 1946 to January 1947, Boyd served as a swimming instructor in Japan.

He attained the rank of sergeant, and served in the Air Force Reserve until he graduated from college.

He graduated from the University of Iowa in 1951 with a bachelor's degree in economics and later earned a second bachelor's degree in industrial engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Boyd was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Air Force following completion of the ROTC program at the University of Iowa.

On March 27, 1953, Boyd arrived in Korea as an F-86 pilot.

In the two months until the Korean War armistice on July 27, Boyd flew 22 missions in F-86 Sabres, in which he did not fire his guns or score a kill.

After his service in Korea, he was invited to attend the Fighter Weapons School (FWS).

Boyd attended the school and graduated at the top of his class.

Upon graduation, he was invited to stay at the FWS as an instructor.

He became head of the Academic Section and wrote the tactics manual for the school.

Boyd was brought to the Pentagon by Major General Arthur C. Agan Jr. to do mathematical analysis that would support the McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle program in order to pass the Office of the Secretary of Defense's Systems Analysis process.

He was dubbed "Forty Second Boyd" for his standing bet as an instructor pilot that beginning from a position of disadvantage, he could defeat any opposing pilot in air combat maneuvering in less than 40 seconds.

According to his biographer, Robert Coram, Boyd was also known at different points of his career as "The Mad Major" for the intensity of his passions, as "Genghis John" for his confrontational style of interpersonal discussion, and as the "Ghetto Colonel" for his spartan lifestyle.

In the early 1960s, Boyd, together with Thomas Christie, a civilian mathematician, created the energy–maneuverability theory, or E-M theory, of aerial combat.

A legendary maverick by reputation, Boyd was said to have stolen the computer time to do the millions of calculations necessary to prove the theory.

A civilian employee had previously barred Boyd from performing the calculations, but Thomas P. Christie provided Boyd a project number.

An investigating inspector general commended Boyd and his computer work.

E-M theory became the world standard for the design of fighter aircraft.

The Air Force's FX project (subsequently the F-15) was then floundering, but Boyd's deployment orders to Vietnam were canceled, and he was brought to the Pentagon to redo the tradeoff studies according to E-M theory.

His work helped save the project from being a costly dud even though its final product was larger and heavier than he had desired.

With Colonel Everest Riccioni and Pierre Sprey, Boyd formed a small advocacy group within Headquarters USAF that dubbed itself the "Fighter Mafia."

Riccioni was an Air Force fighter pilot assigned to a staff position in Research and Development, and Sprey was a civilian statistician working in systems analysis.

While assigned to working on the beginnings of the F-15, then called the Blue Bird, Boyd disagreed with the direction the program was going and proposed an alternative "Red Bird".

The concept was for a clear-weather air-to-air-only fighter with a top speed of Mach 1.6, rather than the Blue Bird's Mach 2.5+.

The top speed would be sacrificed for lower weight (and therefore better maneuverability and lower cost).

Both Boyd and Sprey also argued against an active radar and radar-guided missiles, and they proposed the concept to Air Staff.

The proposal went unheeded, and there were no changes to the Blue Bird.

The Secretary of Defense, attracted by the idea of a low cost fighter, gave funding to Riccioni for a study project on the Lightweight Fighter program (LWF), which became the F-16.

Both the Department of Defense and the Air Force went ahead with the program and stipulated a "design to cost" basis no more than $3 million per copy over 300 aircraft.

During the Vietnam War, he served as Vice Commander of Task Force Alpha and as Commander of the 56th Combat Support Group at Nakhon Phanom Royal Thai Air Force Base in Thailand from April 1972 to April 1973.