- Chronicles is made possible by a grant from the Erie Community Foundation, a community assets grant provided by the Erie County Gaming revenue authority support from Springhill Senior Living, and the generous support of Thomas B. Hagen.

- This is WQLN.

- The United States has prided itself on its military capabilities, a mighty power with the largest air force.

But military dominance hasn't come easy.

- The kill ratio in Korea was 10 to one.

If you look at the Israeli six day war, the kill ratio was six to one in Vietnam.

At times, the kill ratio was one to one.

- In the face of increasing American casualties, one man arguably has had more influence on US fighter tactics than anyone before or after him.

That man was Erie native, John Boyd.

John Boyd entered the world January 27th, 1927.

One of five children born to Elsie and Hubert Boyd, growing up in a small family home on Lincoln Avenue in Erie, Pennsylvania.

But on his third birthday, John's father, Hubert died.

- His father dying, obviously drove the family to have a definite reduction in income and they were very poor.

When he would go to school, they didn't have enough money to buy the latest and greatest of clothes.

So he got a lot of hand-me-downs from his older brother, and he was made fun of in school for wearing jeans with holes in them or whatever, you know, he had on at that point in time.

- Being bullied for his attire was just one of many pressures facing the young John Boyd.

- At that time, children weren't kept in a single family home.

The social services would try to take the children and put 'em in an orphanage but his mother was very, very resistant to that happening.

So she developed a lot of home businesses to support the family.

The other family factor that occurred was John's younger sister contracted Polio at a young age, which really influenced the family.

They were almost ostracized from the neighborhood because at that point in time, polio was thought to be contagious.

- But Elsie still had a few close and influential friends.

- Jack Eckerd was part of the family that initiated and developed the Eckerd Drugstore in Erie, Pennsylvania.

And at a time they were the only drug stores available.

I believe - Eckerd Drugs originally housed at 1105 State Street would become the second largest pharmacy chain in the country.

- So at that point, they were rather wealthy, - Wealthy to the point that Jack had his own private plane.

- For whatever reason, John used to make plane models as a youngster.

So when the opportunity came up that he was offered a a ride in Jack Eckerd's plane, he obviously jumped at it.

And I think that was a total transitional point for him, that he fell in love with planes and aviation.

- And it wasn't long before John pursued his passion for aviation.

- At that time, the US Army Air Corps was part of the US Army.

It wasn't a separate branch.

John was a senior at Strong Vincent and enlisted in the Army Air Corps before he graduated.

- John enlisted as World War II ended and was soon deployed to the Asian Pacific Theater.

- John reports for duty in Japan as, you know, part of the occupying force in January of, of 1946, and he's part of the Army Air Corps there.

He joins the military swim team in Japan and swims because he was a very, very proficient swimmer.

Finishing second in a state tournament when he was a senior, was a lifeguard at the peninsula.

- Don't go out too far, Betty.

You know, you can't swim.

- And at times, to get to the peninsula to be a lifeguard at, he would either row across the bay or swim across the bay.

- But while athletic and eager to fly, it soon became apparent that John didn't behave the way his superiors had hoped.

- During the occupation of Japan, the officers lived indoors.

The enlisted personnel slept in tents outdoors.

There were wooden unused barracks that were in the vicinity.

So to provide heat, John dismantled the barracks and burned them for heat while in sleeping in the tents.

As a result, he was brought up on court-martial charges.

He resisted and fought the court martial charges and was exonerated.

So he's discharged from the military on January 7th, 1947, and he returns to Erie.

He applies to the University of Iowa and is accepted.

- It was at the University of Iowa that John joined the Air Force, ROTC, or Reserve Officers Training Corps.

This involved taking an IQ test something candidates must score well on to become a fighter pilot.

- Yes, he takes the IQ test while he's in the ROTC program at Iowa and doesn't score well, but knows what the outbreak of the Korean War and being in the Air Force ROTC program that when he goes into the Air Force, that he's definitely gonna be a pilot and he wants to be a fighter pilot.

- And just as John predicted, he's assigned duties despite his poor IQ results.

- Once he ships out to Korea and he's assigned to a squadron, he's a wingman.

So he is flying a jet, flying the F-86 Sabre and he's flying wing on a another pilot.

As the wingman, you're not designated as the shooter.

Your duty is to protect the shooter's rear to be on their tail and make sure that they're not shot down by another enemy fighter.

- Once given the opportunity, John shows himself to be gifted at the controls.

- He has very proficient fighter skills in terms of flying the plane, maneuvering the fighter.

It's with that, that he is given the opportunity to to fly - No longer a wingman.

John now had more opportunity to break the rules.

- At that point in time, US aircraft were not permitted to fly over Chinese airspace.

And there were a couple of sorties where unordered boy did fly over China in search of enemy migs, but he did not have any kills during the Korean conflict.

- Despite no confirmed kills, his piloting skills catch the attention of others.

- Well, he had very, very good proficiency reports while in Korea.

So there was no question that that Boyd understood the aircraft, understood how to fly the aircraft and showed great, great skill.

So his commanding officer, once he left Korea, enrolled him in the Advanced Flying School.

In the Advanced Flying School, which was located at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada was similar to the Navy's Top Gun school.

And Boyd would perform tremendously.

So much so that upon graduation from AFS Vernon Spradling, who was the director of the curriculum, requests him to teach in the Fighter Weapons School.

So he becomes an instructor and it's at that point in time where he becomes 40-second Boyd, "Meet me at X altitude and within 40 seconds I will be on your tail."

- Now responsible for instructing others.

Boyd began thinking about how these skills were taught.

- So up to that point in time, dog fighting tactics were never codified.

It was word of mouth from pilot to pilot.

Even going back to World War II, a pilot would, through experience, learn that certain enemy fighters performed in this manner.

They knew from bad experience not to perform certain, certain maneuvers against that type of plane.

So the education of how to dog fight was very, very ad hoc.

Boyd wanted to codify fighter tactics, which he did.

- Boyd wanted to take everything known about dog fighting limitations and best practices, and create a guide that all pilots can draw upon.

- He does this on totally on his own initiative.

He shares with his commanding officer what he's doing.

His commanding officer urges him not to waste his time doing this, but Boyd continues, completes it, and then tries to present it to his commanding officer who doesn't even wanna look at it.

- While not unexpected, the lack of receptiveness was frustrating.

- It's just a persona that exists in the military.

It exists in business, it exists in any organization.

When somebody comes up with something radically different, the administration is resistant to accept whatever is radically different.

It's the old, "Why change?"

- But Boyd was motivated, dogged, and persistent.

- Eventually the commanding officer reads it and is a total supporter of it then.

- With the belief that there were more gains to be had, John sought out further education.

- The Air Force wants Boyd to pursue an MBA, and he pushes back and he wants to achieve an undergraduate engineering degree.

And through that engineering degree, he has to take calculus, physics, and thermodynamics.

So with the study of thermodynamics, he correlates the process of flying to energy.

Not flying to airspeed, it's more about the energy that's produced by the aircraft.

- Graduating from Georgia Tech in 1962, Boyd is promoted to major and assigned to Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, where he meets Thomas Christie.

- Christie is a civilian who has access to mainframe computers and they begin to discuss the different aspects of flying.

- With the correct modeling, a mainframe computer would be able to translate Boyd's flight theories into dog fighting tactical prediction.

But to do this, he would need to steal valuable computing time.

- Now, early 1960s, the time permitted to utilize mainframe computers was, was very limited.

Boyd basically sneaks into the computer room off hours late at night with Christie's help, and they're able to run programs.

And in the end, what what it becomes is what should you do at certain altitudes and certain maneuvers when confronting an enemy fighter?

And it outlines the weaknesses and the strengths of both US fighters and enemy fighters.

- Boyd does years ahead of everybody else as he plots flight performance statistics to enable US fighter pilots to better position himself against enemy aircraft.

All he needs now is the enemy aircraft data to feed into it.

An exercise now supported by General Charles Sweeney, a former pilot who flew as part of the squadron that bombed Hiroshima and piloted the plane that dropped the atomic bomb on Nagasaki.

- He goes through Wright Patterson in Dayton, Ohio to acquire Russian MIG fighter statistics and performance metrics.

- But among lower ranks, support for Boyd was hindered by his worsening reputation.

- He's bullying, he doesn't take no for an answer.

He has very little respect for higher authority.

- Boyd is met with efforts to sabotage his work.

- He's given bogus data, which he sees right away.

General Sweeney is intervenes and eventually he gets the, the accurate Russian MIG data.

So when he presents his data to Sweeney staff, he presents his data on every US plane, US Air Force plane, except the F1 11.

And he meets Harry Hiller, who is the president of General Dynamics and the father of the F1 11.

And it was a very, very confrontational first meeting.

He tells Hiller that the F1 11 is too big, too heavy, too expensive, and too underpowered.

Sweeney asked they should do with the plane.

So Boyd's response to Sweeney is, pull the wings, put in benches, paint it yellow, and make it a bus.

You gotta remember at this point in time, the US Air Force designed and developed aircraft that were bigger, faster, and heavier.

And then the whole reason for that is the ability to carry nuclear weapons.

And they, they kind of downplay the development of fighter aircraft.

So in Vietnam, the F 1 0 5 and the F four Phantom were the primary weapons in, in the US fighter arsenal.

They were designed and developed without armament, without guns.

They utilized air-to-air missiles.

Totally.

And that was one of the reasons that in close end dog fighting, they could not fire off or arm their missiles.

They were at a disadvantage, with - against the Russian MIGs.

So this gets Boyd demanding to be involved in new fighter design.

- US Air Force Chief of Staff, John McDonnell, ordered Boyd to the Pentagon to aid the FX design project.

- And they put together a design of a nimble, smaller fighter.

- And so the F-16 was born.

First flying in 1974, it would prove to be a cheaper, formidable tool for the American fighter pilots engaged in close quarter combat - and would become one of the most popular fighter jets of all time.

In fact, it's still an active service after 50 years with over 4,500 jets made to date.

But Boyd wasn't done with design work yet.

He soon turned his attention to another aviation need, a close air support attack aircraft.

- The Air Force wanted the B-1 bomber, which becomes the, the costliest plane in US history.

- In the mid 1970s, Secretary of Defense, James Schlesinger, requested an alternative option for ground support.

Boyd's response was the A-10 Warthog.

- The A-10 was not a complex aircraft.

It wasn't fast, it wasn't designed to fly at high altitudes.

It was a ground support aircraft.

There were two features of the A-10 that made it different than any other aircraft.

There was a titanium bathtub, which the pilot sat in, which protected from any ground attack, and the Gatling gun that was put in the nose was a weapon that was unsurpassed in being able to chew up military vehicles, tanks, half tracks, et cetera.

And during Desert Storm, it absolutely performed unbelievably at taking out Iranian tanks.

- In a departure from his design work, Boyd has made vice commander of Task Force Alpha an observation post in Thailand.

- And basically it's a spy base on the border of Laos.

- He had command over a coalition of us and tie forces having never previously had command over anyone, he arrived to rampant drug use and racial unrest.

- And surprisingly, with his personality, he handles the this command very well.

He cleans up the, the drug use, he quells the racial unrest.

I believe he probably recalled back to his childhood when he was at points in time, somewhat discriminated against because of, you know, the poverty that he and his family were experiencing.

- John observed that age-old military tactics of numbers and attrition were waning in their success.

He concluded that knowledge and adaptability would be the greatest weapons in future conflicts.

It's around this time that he broadened his intellectual reading and began contemplating the theory of learning.

This led to what some say is his biggest contribution, the OODA Loop.

- So the OODA Loop stands for observe, orient, decide, and act.

I don't think it's any different than analyzing any type of problem, whether it's a business problem, whether it's a personal problem, whether it's a military problem.

The difference between the military decision and the personal decision or a business decision is the timeframe with which those four factors need to occur.

Observation, orientation, decision and action.

If you're a fighter pilot and you're employing the use of the OODA Loop while you're dog fighting those decisions and, and that analysis needs to occur almost in split second timing.

- While the premise sounds simple enough in its basic form, John's theories became an integral part of military training.

- Up to that point in time, individuals may have been doing it without knowing that they were actually following a specific process.

But I believe it's his urging that it's employed and used during military scenarios, confrontation, dog fighting - An important progression on his earlier thinking.

- I think it's just the next step in the whole process of what he's developed.

The codification of fighter tactics, the application of fighter performance, both enemy and US, and the modeling thereof.

And also use of the energy maneuverability theory, I think then it's just the final application of the OODA Loop, which utilizes the prior work that was done.

- Much like the response to his earlier work, the Air Force was dismissive of Boyd's way of thinking.

- The military doesn't do well with change, and I don't believe that they knew how to accept the intellectual part of John Boyd.

And I think a lot of it was due to his personality.

Again, you know, he was colorful, controversial, bullying, impolitic, impolite.

So, I just think part of that delivery is a lot of what the Air Force opposed to.

- Despite this rejection from the military branch that had captured John's heart from an early age, his ideas were readily adopted by another branch of the US military.

- The US Marine Corps totally, totally accepted Boyd and his teachings.

So much so that there's an annual Boyd Symposium held at Quantico, sponsored by the Marine Corps.

- Boyd would later go on to work with Michael Wyly, a US marine instructor to write a new tactics manual for the Marine Corps Amphibious Warfare School.

- I'm not sure why the Marine Corps in total accepted his, you know, principles versus the Air Force, but I think the Marine Corps historically has, and their motto is first the fight.

They're generally called on very, very soon in, in a confrontation.

In a lot of ways they're the first ones in.

Now, I know there'll be Army personnel and Air Force personnel and Navy personnel who'll dispute that.

But if you look back in history, a lot of times in different small engagements, they've been the first in.

So I think they've had to be on the forefront to develop new tactics.

And the other aspect is the Marine Corps is, I- potentially, more accepting to change than maybe the other branches of service.

They're smaller, they're less funded.

The other branches of service have tried to eliminate them over time and in history.

- And while primarily developed for military strategy, the principles of the OODA Loop were adopted in a number of other fields.

- So there's great evidence of his teachings being incorporated in business.

The OODA Loop, for example, is taught in different business schools and accepted by different business organizations around the world.

- And later adopted by the US Air Force.

- I contacted a friend who was just a newly commissioned Navy lieutenant, but I asked him, I said, "Do you-- does the Air Force still teach the Energy Maneuverability Theory?

And do you follow Boyd's principles?"

And he said "So much so that the, the Air Force does teach a lot of the, the intellectual learning material that Boyd developed."

So maybe publicly, the Air Force doesn't wanna recognize him, but they've come to realize that the work that he did was very valuable.

- Another aspect of John's reputation was his budget conscious thinking.

Perhaps another legacy of his impoverished upbringing.

Much of John's development of his OODA Loop theory was conducted as a civilian contractor.

As a serviceman, his salary was dictated by the military.

- But then when he became a civilian contractor assigned to the Pentagon, he wasn't demanding the high salary that other contractors were demanding.

In fact, he advocated that he be paid only a dollar every pay period.

And I think part of that was due to what he saw, that different contracting companies or aircraft development or manufacturing companies were charging the U--, the Department of Defense for these different munitions that, that they were building.

- This had been a concern since his first interaction with Hilliker and General Sweeney about the general dynamics of the F-111 Aardvark.

John's budget conscious approach can be seen in his design work.

The A-10 warthog and F-16 are two of the cheaper combat planes to build and operate.

But with a hunger to influence yet further change.

Boyd partnered with a civilian contractor at the Pentagon, Franklin Spinney, - And they developed basically, or they initiate the Military Reform Movement.

- This movement sets out to scrutinize all aspects of military spending, yet another pragmatic but problematic contribution.

And after his death, March 9th, 1997, John Boyd was buried at Arlington Cemetery with full military honors.

Despite his contributions, few people attended from the Air Force.

- There were a few minor Air Force officers that attended.

And it's not known were, were they ordered to or were they attending basically on their own personal initiative.

But the Marine Corps was, was very well represented at his funeral.

I think a lot of his work probably saved the lives of US pilots subsequently, he wasn't engaged in specific combat.

But anyone who has that effect on others, I think in my eyes, categorize his him as, as a hero.

- Chronicles is made possible by a grant from the Erie Community Foundation, a community assets grant provided by the Erie County Gaming Revenue Authority support from Springhill Senior Living and the generous support of Thomas B. Hagen.

- We question and learn.