"Required reading for frustrated innovators, aviation buffs, and Horatio Algers intent on improving the
world against the best efforts of ever-prevailing deal busters and naysayers." - Kirkus Reviews
p.4 he not only stole more than $1 million worth of computer time from the Air Force to develop a radical
new theory but survived every resulting investigation.
p.6 Late one night, while studying for an exam in thermodynamics, Boyd went off on a riff about being a
fighter pilot in Korea and what it was like to fly an F-86 down MiG Alley. Suddenly what he learned in thermodynamics meshed
with all that he had learned as a fighter pilot and Boyd had the epiphany that became his Energy-Maneuverability (E-M) Theory.
p.7 Boyd was one of the most important unknown men of his time. He did what so
few men are privileged to do: he changed the world.
p.31 The winter of 1945-1946 was particularly cold and wet in Japan. On the former Japanese air base where
Boyd was stationed, officers lived in warm quarters, slept in beds, ate hot food, while enlisted ranks lived in tents, slept
on the ground, and ate K rations. Large wooden hangars suitable for barracks-type housing stood empty and unused. Fed up with
this situation, Boyd led a revolt. He and his fellow soldiers tore down two hangars and used the wood to build fires so they
could stay warm. Soon after, the Army inventoried base property and discovered the hangars had gone missing. Boyd was identified
as the leader of the perpetrators and brought up on charges. A court-martial loomed... But Private Boyd went on the attack
and turned the pending court-martial into a referendum on officer leadership and responsibility... Boyd said that if the court-martial
proceeded, he would raise the issue of officer responsibility with higher authorities.
The charges were dropped. The U.S. military had lost its first run-in with Boyd.
p.49 Once again, Boyd arrived late for war.
On March 27, 1953, he and a host of other young men, most of them sporting the silver bars or a first
lieutenant on their collars, arrived aboard a C-54 transport at Suwon in South Korea... For the first few weeks in Korea,
they flew relatively safe and uneventful missions as wingmen... A new pilot had to fly about thirty missions as a wingman
before he could be promoted to element leader and become a shooter.
p.51 On a [training] flight designed to show the young pilots a bit of humility and to teach them the dangers
of combat, Boyd turned the tables and defeated a combat veteran [in a mock battle]. He was elated. He considered himself ready
for combat
p.131 Boyd went to the civilian who controlled the computers and asked for access. He wanted several
hundred hours of time, maybe more. The civilian held a rank equal to that of a one-star general. He stared at Boyd
in disbelief. "Major Boyd, what is your job here at Eglin?" he asked.
Boyd grinned... "Well, I've had several jobs since I got here. Right now I'm a maintenance
officer... Once the Air Force understands what I'm doing, they're going to tell me to spend all my time developing
these theories of mine. I'm going to change everything people think they know about aviation."
The civilian threw Boyd out of his office.
p.187 But then Boyd's voice grew louder. "Hose him!" People seated nearby turned to look. Christie
elbowed Boyd. "John," he admonished, "it's just a movie."
Boyd was quiet for a few moments. But during the next aerial engagement, as the German fighters played
a deadly game of grabass with British fighters, Boyd disapproved of the tactics.
"Break left! Break left!" he shouted.
Now people for several rows around were turning to look. "John," Christie said. He was so embarrassed
he almost moved to another seat.
Boyd was so intense in evaluating the air-to-air combat that he forgot he was in a movie.
Finally he could take no more. He stood up, waved both arms, jabbed one hand toward the screen, and shouted at the top of
his lungs, "You missed the goddamn shot! Hose him, you stupid bastard!"
p.194 From the moment he walked into the Pentagon, Boyd was embroiled in conflict.
According to a monograph from the Office of Air Force History, the colonel for whom Boyd
worked gave him a copy of the F-X design and asked for comments. The monograph says Boyd "summarily rejected it."
... The weight had been trimmed down to about 62,500 pounds, but the fighter as still overweight and underwinged, too complex
and far too expensive. And because it was a multirole aircraft, Boyd knew it could do none of its jobs very well... Boyd's
first objective was to cut back on the weight of the F-X. This would both lower the cost and improve maneuverability.
p.210 Boyd's trade-offs using E-M and computers were a turning point in aviation design and aviation history.
He was working with the entire maneuvering envelope of a proposed fighter, something that had never been done before.
p.224 He did not always fly enough to maintain his flight-currency requirements and twice
his boss took him up in a T-33 to regain currency, to enable him to keep his flying pay. But eventually his currency
lapsed and Boyd did not regain it. Fellow pilots who knew his background were puzzled. "Why?" they asked. He shrugged
and said, "I've done that."
p.225 Since the F-X had sprung forth at 62,500 pounds and since many generals believed
bigger was better, those generals now thought of the F-X as a lightweight fighter, almost a toy. Yet Boyd still
was not happy. He wanted the F-X to weigh under 35,000 pounds.
p.225 By 1968, people in the [Pentagon] did not know if Boyd was a genius or a wild man.
The most favorable light that can be put on much of his behavior is that it was not that of the typical lieutenant colonel
seeking advancement.
p.226 Once, he accosted a general in the corridor and began an intense conversation about lowering the weight
of the F-X. Boyd was smoking a cigar and waving his arms and jabbing his finger. The general grew bored and turned
and began edging away just as Boyd reached out to emphasize a point. The cigar burned a hole in the general's tie... [the
general] slapped out the burning tie, then spun and walked away. Boyd did not know the reason for the general's abrupt
departure until someone said, "Damn, John, you just set the general's tie on fire."
p.227 The Air Force feeling about weight was demonstrated during a meeting when the TAC colonel
in charge of fighter requirements stood up and said, "I don't give a damn what the airplane weighs. The specs we
gave you are the absolute validated TAC requirements. We have to have those things and I don't care about the weight. Besides,
everyone knows a good big airplane is better than a good little airplane."
This was the very antithesis of what E-M revealed to Boyd.
p.301 Boyd explains that in combat, both at the highest command level and at the lowest, individuals
first orient themselves so they can understand the situation, then they make a decision to direct their activities, and then
they take action.
p.323 on September 3, 1976, Boyd came forth with the eleven-page "Destruction and Creation" paper
he had been working on since 1972... finishing it was anticlimactic. Boyd simply passed out a few copies.
Burton and Spinney pleaded with Boyd to have the paper published. It would
have been relatively easy for Boyd to do so in one of several military magazines. But he never submitted it. One reason
is because he did not believe that intellectual works are ever finished; he would revise "Destruction and Creation"
for years to come. A second, more speculative reason is that he might have been fearful of the criticism that comes
to such works upon publication.
p.323 the most important part of "Destruction and Creation" is Boyd's elaboration on the idea that a relationship
exists between an observer and what is being observed.
p.326 The danger... is that if our mental processes become focused on our internal dogmas and isolated
from the unfolding, constantly dynamic outside world, we experience mismatches between our mental images and reality.
Then confusion and disorder and uncertainty not only result but continue to increase... Boyd showed why this
is a natural process and why the only alternative is to do a destructive deduction and rebuild one's mental image
to correspond to the new reality.
p.327 Once he completed "Destruction and Creation," Boyd was a man possessed. It seemed he could
hear at some subliminal level the voices of young military officers crying out for change, for a manifesto that would make
them victorious in battle. To Boyd, nothing less than America's national defense hung in the balance.
p.335 Before Boyd came along, others had proposed primitive versions of an OODA Loop. The key thing
to understand about Boyd's version is not the mechanical cycle itself, but rather the need to execute the cycle in such a
fashion as to get inside the mind and the decision cycle of the adversary. This means the adversary is dealing
with outdated or irrelevant information and thus becomes confused and disoriented and can't function... the orientation
phase is a nonlinear feedback system, which, by its very nature, means this is a pathway into the unknown. The unpredictability
is critical to the success of the OODA Loop.
p.341 To prevail in personal and business relations, and especially war, we must understand what takes place
in a person's mind... "Machines don't fight wars," [Boyd] responded. "Terrain doesn't fight wars. Humans fight wars. You must
get into the minds of humans. That's where the battles are won."
p.362 By now, some of the ideas in Boyd's briefing, particularly the OODA Loop, were popping up
in various publications, often without crediting him. Boyd never seemed to care. He was a true guerrilla in that
he only wanted his ideas to find acceptance.
