Boyd (40 page)

As mind-boggling as it sounds, the Air Force looked at the total amount of fuel carried and never considered the fuel fraction.
The school of Bigger-Higher-Faster-Farther was so firmly ingrained that it was almost genetic: big airplanes have more range
than small airplanes. The MiG-21 was a small aircraft and notoriously short-legged. So was the F-5, another small fighter.
If the Blue Suiters had considered birds, rather than airplanes, they might have found a better example. There is a hummingbird
that can fly across the Gulf of
Mexico, while birds many times its size can fly only a few miles. The hummingbird has a high fuel fraction.

Boyd told Sprey, “Tiger, they are gonna use what they see as the lack of range to try to kill this airplane. Let ’em. Let
that be their main focus. At the right time we will tell them otherwise and they will have nothing left. We will hose them.”

Boyd was right. Air Force generals and congressional critics and reporters friendly to the Pentagon looked at the amount of
fuel the lightweight fighter contained and began describing it as “short-legged,” a plane of such limited range it could defend
only the airfield from which it took off, the “home drome.” The focus of criticism against the lightweight fighter became
its limited range, as predicted. Boyd once delivered a briefing on the lightweight fighter and afterward a general looked
around, smiled, and said, “That’s a short-legged little fucker, isn’t it, Colonel?”

“Sir, it looks that way,” Boyd said, ignoring the derisive grins of those in the room.

The Navy loathed Sprey, as did the Air Force, and had coached Senate Armed Services committee members on how to fight him.
He was bitterly attacked when he testified to the committee about how the military was gold-plating the F-14 and the F-15
with parts that could be bought for civilian aircraft at one-tenth what the military was paying. He said the lightweight fighter
being prototyped by the Air Force was the proper course for the military. A Navy official said Sprey’s work was filled with
“fallacious assumptions, half truths, distortions, and erroneous extrapolations.” The Navy questioned the proposed performance
of the lightweight fighter and said for an airplane to have the sort of thrust-to-weight ratio that Sprey described, the aircraft
would have to weigh at least fifty thousand pounds. No toy fighter could do what Sprey said the new fighter would do.

It would be several years before the Air Force realized that the lightweight fighter not only had greater range than the F-15
but had greater range
than any other fighter in the Air Force
. That knowledge would cause more than a dozen generals to explode in anger. Keeping secret the range of the lightweight fighter
was one of Boyd’s greatest cape jobs.

Rarely in Air Force history has the design of an Air Force fighter been supervised by such a vigilant eye. Any suggested design
change
by the contractors meant a deviation from Boyd’s requirements. Every suggestion caused him to “come apart,” as Christie described
it. Boyd lost one significant design battle. He wanted each of the competing aircraft to have only one engine. But a three-star
at WrightPat found it impossible to imagine a single-engine fighter. Thus, the YF-16 on the drawing board at General Dynamics
could remain a single-engine, but the YF-17 at Northrop would be a twin-engine.

Boyd’s determination to keep the lightweight fighter pure had one unusual side effect. A colonel whose specialty was preparing
computer models to evaluate airplanes clearly favored the Northrop design. He developed a model showing the YF-17 was the
better aircraft and tried to have the model made part of the source-selection process, a highly improper action. One day Sprey
was in the colonel’s office when the phone rang. Sprey realized that whoever was on the other end was telling the colonel
that his computer model was being cut from the selection process. As the colonel argued he grew more and more excited and
began sputtering and then a froth of saliva appeared at the corners of his mouth. He turned white and fell out of his chair.
Sprey rushed around the desk to assist. After a moment the colonel shook himself and motioned for Sprey to leave the office.
A few minutes later Sprey ran into Boyd and said, “The most amazing thing just happened. I was with…”—he named the colonel—“…
when he got a phone call. Then all at once he fell out of his chair and began foaming at the mouth. I thought he was dying.”

Boyd looked at Sprey and said, “That was me on the line. I wondered why the phone went dead.”

Afterward the incident became known as the “air-to-rug maneuver,” and the Acolytes shook their heads in amazement that even
on the telephone Boyd could cause a Blue Suiter to fall out of his chair. The story of the air-to-rug maneuver became a favorite
at happy hour, especially after the colonel became a four-star and then the Air Force chief of staff.

Boyd arrived late for World War II, late for the Korean conflict, and late for the Vietnam War. It was not until the end of
1971 that Boyd received orders sending him to Thailand, to one of the most highly classified military bases in Southeast Asia,
where he would be working on a project so secretive he could discuss it only with a few people
who had both a need to know and a security clearance beyond “top secret”—a code-word clearance.

A man going off to war has a need to revisit his roots. So in February1972, Boyd went home to Erie, where he was greeted by
ice and snow and the perpetual gloom of an Erie winter. Boyd visited his mother, but their relationship was strained, almost
formal, ever since that visit when Elsie would not allow Boyd and Mary and the children in her house and they had to stay
in a motel.

As always Boyd looked up Frank Pettinato and tracked down two or three close friends. He told them about the F-15 and the
lightweight fighter and all the generals he had to fight and what a constant battle it was to produce the greatest fighter
aircraft in history. But he was there, right in the middle of it, and he was making sure it went well. He would win in the
end; he knew he would. Pettinato nodded and smiled in approval. Much of this was far too complex for him. But Boyd was like
his son and he believed what the man said. Many of Boyd’s friends did not. Yeah, yeah, yeah, they said, not bothering to hide
their disbelief that someone from Erie could ever do such things. Great story, John. And they looked at each other and grinned.
Pure bullshit, their expressions said. Oh, and by the way, John, when pilots go to war, they fly jet fighters. So what will
you be flying over there? Well, this is not a flying assignment, he said, I’m running an operation. What operation is that?
Can’t talk about it. They laughed again. Can’t be too important, they said. It if were, a general would be running it and
you sure as hell are not a general. Boyd was silent for a moment, then he changed the subject. He and his friends talked of
the old times, of growing up in Erie, of boyhood pranks, of the milkshakes they bought at Stinson’s.

When Boyd returned to Washington, he had only a few weeks to have a physical examination and to take care of the countless
preparations involved in being assigned to a combat zone. In the middle of these preparations came his last ER from Andrews
AFB. The reporting officer, a two-star, downgraded him in three categories on the front side. But a three-star wrote an indorsement
that slammed the reviewing officer by upgrading Boyd in four categories on the front side. It is rare that one general humiliates
another in this fashion. But once again a higher-ranking officer had salvaged Boyd’s ER.

By now scholarly journals or papers presented at scientific conferences had begun to take note of Boyd’s E-M Theory. In the
January–February 1970 issue of
Journal of Aircraft
was an article entitled “Energy Climbs, Energy Turns, and Asymptotic Expansions” that made reference to Boyd. In 1972, papers
or articles on “Differential Turns,” “Supersonic Aircraft Energy Turns,” and “Aircraft Maneuver Optimization by Reduced-Order
Approximation” all used Boyd’s work. And while Boyd was in Thailand, attendees at various scientific conferences heard papers
on such topics as “Applications of Reachable Sets Techniques to Air Combat Analysis,” “Long-Range Energy-State Maneuvers for
Minimum Time to Specified Terminal Conditions,” and “Energy Management Rules for Turning Flight,” all of which were based
largely on Boyd’s work.

And it wasn’t just theory. There would have been an F-15 even if there had never been a John Boyd, but it would have been
an altogether different creature—probably a misshapen F-111–like airplane that more than likely would have died in the process
and thus forced the Air Force to adopt a Navy airplane. Boyd’s E-M Theory so shaped the F-15 that many were calling him the
“Father of the F-15.” Finally, there was the lightweight fighter. On April 13, 1972, about the time Boyd left for Thailand,
Secretary of Defense Laird gave the Air Force approval to build the prototype aircraft for the lightweight-fighter program.
This meant that, for the first time since World War II, the U.S. Air Force had three new tactical aircraft in production at
the same time—the F-15, the lightweight fighter, and the A-10. All were from Air Force designs and not foisted off by the
Navy. Boyd was largely responsible for two of them and Sprey the other.

When Boyd left for Thailand, he embarked on the first and only command assignment of his career. It was his last war, so he
had to make the most of everything. He had to perform his duties in an outstanding fashion—no more critical ERs. While he
was away, prototypes of the lightweight fighter would be built. The fly-offs would take place about the time he returned and
he wanted to have a role in deciding which of the two aircraft the Air Force would buy.

But that was a year away. In April 1972, Mary and the children drove Boyd to Dulles, told him good-bye, and left before he
boarded a transport of the Military Airlift Command. As always, per fighter-pilot family tradition, Mary and the kids did
not watch him take off.

Boyd flew to Travis AFB in California, where more military personnel boarded, and then it was on to Anchorage, Alaska, before
crossing the Pacific to Japan. The transport flew down to Clark AFB in the Philippines, where Boyd spent the night in the
bachelor officers’ quarters. The next morning he flew to Bangkok and loaded his bags aboard a C-130 that made the rounds of
Thai Air Force bases before finally landing at Nakhon Phanom Royal Thai AFB.

I
N
every war there are military bases where activities are so secret that few people outside the base know what goes on there.
These bases have a mystique, a hint of strange comings and goings, rumors of covert organizations that are a cover for even
more covert organizations. In the Vietnam war that base was Nakhon Phanom Royal Thai AFB, commonly known as NKP or, by the
more irreverent, as Naked Fanny. Activities at NKP were so highly classified that for the first three or four years of its
existence the base officially did not exist. But by the time Boyd arrived in April 1972, the word was out: NKP was a spook
base.

NKP perches on the east bank of the Mekong River in northeast Thailand, a few miles from the old market town of Nakhon Phanom.
It is on the Laotian border, about two hundred miles south of the Plain of Jars. Numerous and varied military operations,
all highly compartmentalized so that few people knew what others were doing, were based there. The army had a heavily guarded
compound from which the curiously named Studies and Observation Group (SOG) launched some of the most daring and still-secret
activities of the war. Six special air-warfare squadrons were based there, and they flew
such a bewildering assortment of antiquated propeller-driven aircraft that pilots called NKP “the flying circus.” Helicopters
of the special operations crowd clattered in and out at all hours of the day and night. Forward air controllers (FAC) flew
nimble little twin-engine OV-10s. World War II–era single-engine A-1 “Sandys”—muscular and heavily armed aircraft—flew search-and-rescue
missions and CAS missions, particularly for Special Forces units. (Pierre Sprey’s A-10 was modeled in part after the A-1.)
A-26s, World War II light bombers, flew frequent combat missions. Taking off day and night were the ungainly AC-119s, propeller-driven
cargo aircraft that, with the addition of a big Gatling cannon firing out the side, became deadly gunships that could light
up a target like a Christmas tree. And there were a host of bulbous-nosed, antennae-wearing surveillance aircraft found nowhere
else in the Air Force.

No F-4s or Thuds were based there, but they often landed to refuel. After aggressive North Vietnamese pilots shot down a helicopter
flying out of NKP, a fully-armed F-4 occasionally sat on runway alert, ready to launch if MiGs came close. NKP was one of
the busiest bases in Southeast Asia. It operated perhaps more flights at night than during the day.

Various fenced compounds were scattered around the base and unless one had business there they were off limits. But, as a
rule, the base was relatively open. Thais operated a tailor shop, laundry, a bar, and several other commercial establishments.
One of the more curious facts about NKP is that it was overrun by packs of wild dogs. The dogs were more or less accepted—hey,
we’re in Thailand, we’re at war, was the general feeling. Besides, the ravenous dogs were good at catching the big rats that
lived under the hooches of junior officers.

Taking up much of the base was an enormous complex surrounded by two security fences topped with razor wire. Earth-filled
revetments bordered the complex. Security police stood in towers and walked patrol along the fences. Admittance to the complex
was tightly controlled. The main building, when constructed in 1968, was the largest single building in all of Southeast Asia.
But most of the facility was underground, protected by thick concrete walls and operating inside a positive pressurized atmosphere
to keep out dust and protect an enormous array of computers. Around NKP the complex
was known simply as the “Project.” The official name was Task Force Alpha. Various other code names were associated with the
complex: Igloo White, Dutch Mill, and Muscle Shoals.