"To be challenged in such a manner is an irresistible red flag to men like this, and certainly no less of one because the challenger was a rude, loud, irreverent braggart who had never been victorious in actual air-to-air combat. And yet that forty dollars went uncollected, uncollected for many years against scores of the best fighter pilots in the world.
That is more than luck. That is more than skill. That is more than tactics. That level of supremacy is the result of the ability to see things in an entirely new way. It is the difference between escaping from a maze you are embedded in, versus finding the way out from one that you look down upon from above.
Having your ass handed to you in such a spectacular and repeated fashion causes some men to curse and mutter about ‘one trick ponies’ and so on. But for others, for those who are more invested in victory than in ego, it reveals a level of skill that instantly removes all swagger and competition and puts one in the place of a willing supplicant, eager for knowledge."
Here at Winds of Change.NET, we've talked about a fighter pilot named Col. John Boyd - always with immense respect. Many of you will look at that name and think "Who?"
OK, think Sir Basil Liddell Hart. Too obscure? Then try these names on for size as compatriots: Karl von Clausewitz. Sun Tzu. Do we have your attention yet?
I don't think that it's stretching Boyd's importance, or his contribution, very much to place him in that company. Indeed, I predict that in a couple hundred years, when people look back on the 20th century and think of the theory of warfare and armed conflict, they won't think of Mikhail Tukachevsky, or his student Guederian. Or even Sir Basil. Instead, they'll mention an American Colonel who was, for a very long time, a prophet without honor in his own country.
Which may lead you to ask the question: "how come I haven't heard of this guy?" Rather than explaining all the reasons, I'd rather take a more productive tack - and direct you to an immensely readable, riveting, but brief explanation of who Boyd was, what he discovered, and why it matters more than ever today...
Enter Bill Whittle. Bill really knows his airplanes - and I say this as someone who has spent a lot of time in that field for many years. He also knows the back-stories: the stories behind a number of things you see in the skies today, and a few you don't. I guess being the grandson of this guy will give you a few tendencies in that direction. Finally, Bill has a gift for describing a situation's human drama, in addition to its importance in the realm of ideas.
All gifts have their moments. This may have been Bill's.
His article about John Boyd's journey from years of uncollected steak-dinner bets, to one of strategy's great leading lights, is one of his best pieces - and is probably the best popular explanation of Col. John Boyd that I've seen to this point. Anywhere.
"Part 1: Pope John and the Supersonic Monastery" is absolutely worth your read if you're interested in understanding warfare, or strategy more generally.
"Part 2: The Big Picture" connects Boyd's ideas to present events - while discussing the ability to reach beyond the Perfect Swordsman, and The Perfect Sword, to something on the next level: Swordlessness. Part 2 is a very interesting bookend to Noah Shachtman's recent WIRED article "How Technology Almost Lost the War...", which was the first thing I'd seen in a while that really began to capture what's going on at the front, and what guys like Andrew were/are a part of.
Read Part 1 of Bill's latest offering to expand your horizon of ideas. Read Part 2 to challenge it. Agree or disagree, you'll be richer for having done it.
Better yet - read one of the Boyd biographies that are out there (as recommened in the linked articles) - and do a web search on his OODA paper - it's out there. I understand that getting the OODA talk was impressive, much more so than the paper
I put missing that up there with missing the talks from RADM Hopper (I'm a computer geek, so the later rank high)
Dang, Bill's really the grandson of Sir Frank "Power Jets" Whittle?
Dang.
Whittle, I think, writes at his finest on Boyd. I heartily concur with the recommendation to read both parts of Bill's excellent essay.
(And sure, read more on Boyd and OODA as well.)
I have followed Bill's essays since I discovered the blogosphere here thingy. Way back when I was searching for a rational explanation for 9-11. SURPRISE - There wasn't one, I came to find. But Whittle and den Beste made me think in other ways. WoC was a respite from the screeching of the Left and another rational island in what was and is a cacaphony of voices.
I recommend his collection of essays, when read as a work they are something else. If you want to have Plato or Locke or even Buckley, they are not for you, but they are a not-so-common man's views written for the everyday folks in the world.
Boyd's OODA loop and flight manuevers are something to stimulate the mind. The Thach Weave is a simple and elegant solution to a not so obvious problem.
Count me as another fan of Col. Boyd. Another useful document is Robert Coram's biography of Boyd.
BTW, anyone who's run into the notion of 'decision loops' in management theory has already imbibed a little of Boyd's theory, though it's origin isn't often credited.
Yup, Bill's grandfather invented the jet engine for the allies, and laid the foundation for jet aircraft in Britain and America.
The link re: previous Winds coverage includes links to other Boyd-related resources, from OODA loops to other aspects of his theories.
Power back on at last... storm coming tomorrow. Oh, yeah.
...they are men who survive because they can (and have) initiated 16-to-1 fights because they possess the confidence – actually, the untrammeled ego – to know they will win.
That reminds me of a story told to me by a Luftwaffe pilot involving a P51. This fellow had test flown most of the Allied aircraft, fixed up after being downed, and had noted that the P51 stalled out without any warning vibration of the stick. Well, towards the end of the war he was leading a shwarm of inexperienced pilots low to the ground when they were attacked by a single Mustang. Rather than dog fight, he had the group fly in a close circle, flaps out, as slow as they could, and when the Mustang tried to follow them around it suddenly stalled out and crashed. The Luftwaffe guy was quite proud of this feat, but he agreed with me that the Mustang pilot was perhaps a bit foolish to attack the whole schwarm in the first place.
With many thanks for the kind words, I just felt the need to clarify: I am not -- as far as I know -- related to Sir Frank Whittle in any way other than spiritually, much as I would like to be.