Product Description

A larger-than-life fighter pilot and genius of aviation, engineering and military strategy, Boyd dared to challenge the intractable military bureaucracy and its outmoded practices. The single-minded determination developed in his youth carried him on to renown for his skill as a fighter pilot, for his passion as an instructor, his legendary appetite and lack of respect for his superiors. But this was just the start as he went on to transform the way military planes were designed, fighting the air force's entrenched ideas every step of the way. Boyd's breakthrough designs were crucial to the creation of the F-15 and 16, and he dedicated years to an innovative theory of conflict that eventually made him the most influential military theoretician since Sun Tzu. A magnet for bright young men dissatisfied with the impractically old-fashioned methods of the military, his circle of "acolytes" extended his influence through their headline-grabbing Reform Movement. By the time of Boyd's death his name had reached the furthest corners of the military establishment. Coram paints a colourful portrait of this extremely unconventional man who locked horns with the most conventional of bureaucracies - and won.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #639649 in Books
• Published on: 2003-04-03
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 320 pages

About the Author
Corram has written 3 books of non-fiction as well as 7 novels. His articles have appeared in the New Yorker & other major mags & he has been nominated twice for a Pulitzer He is a qualified commercial pilot and is one of the few civilians to have flown both the F-100 and the F-15.

Customer Reviews

A compelling account of an airman's life
Before I picked up this book on a whim, I had never heard of John Boyd, or the aircraft mafia, or indeed even the reformers. Come to think of it, this is the first military-themed book I've read since I was about twelve.

What I found in this book was a compelling and meticulously researched tale about a soldier's soldier. John Boyd lived by the principle that a man in the forces could either get ahead and be promoted, or he could do something that made a difference. John and those he rallied to his causes were men who did things, often to the detriment of their careers.

This is a hard book to put down - it really is a page turner, and you can sense the frustration of setbacks in Boyd's work, and the thrill of his victories. In the later sections where Boyd is working behind the scenes to help a friend take the army to task over some clearly corrupt work, you get a real sense of the magnitude of what Boyd and those around him were trying to fight.

Even more interesting is how Boyd's later work has tied in so well with modern warfare, generating the concept of fourth-generation warfare, and taking the Marines from a face to face punchout type of outfit to a quick moving guerilla force that disorient their opponents with speed and seemingly random movements.

I heartily recommend this book. People in the military should be reading it, people who like modern aircraft will enjoy it. To be honest, anyone who likes a good story should find this book entertaining.

The most original military thinker since Sun Tzu.
John Boyd was a US Airforce pilot who served in WWII, Korea and Vietnam. He developed a methodology called E-M Theory in the 1950s. E-M Theory was the first mathematical way of describing an aircraft's dogfighting characteristics and led to a systematic method of comparing aircraft performance and, more importantly, working out the best way to fight the strengths of one aircraft against the weaknesses of an adversary. Simply revolutionary at the time. He is known as the father of the F-15 and was a member of the so called "Fighter Maffia" who foisted the F-16 on an downright hostile USAF in the seventies. Some have said John Boyd was the most original military thinker since Sun Tzu.

Enjoyed reading the book, although it was a very sycophantic in places. Having said that it tells the story of a man who persisted in what be believed in and revolutionised air to air combat.

Recommended.

A Bona Fide Hero
This book is wonderful. It is a portrait of an fascinating and inspiring character: brilliant, opinionated, dogged, vulgar, charismatic. Robert Coram chronicles Boyd's fight against the dishonourable careerism that haunts the corridors of the Pentagon, where what advances the individual wins out over what advances the security of the United States.

Boyd's innovations in fighter tactics and military strategy (you're going to hear more of the OODA or Boyd Loop as the years go by), made in the teeth of entrenched establishment opposition, make this an important, entertaining and inspiring book.

Col John R Boyd is something the US needs right now: a bona fide hero.