We will go over John Boyd's book "Aerial Attack Study" and see how it applies to WW2 air combat manuevering and a bit beyond. I'll also talk about energy maneuverability and the OODA loop.

I understand that there is an anti John Boyd video out there and some people are comparing my video to his. I want to say a few things about that. My video isn't about John Boyd the man, nor does my video deal with his book as it applies in the modern beyond visual range missile environment. I'm getting a lot of comments from people that are either not smart enough to understand this video, or are so ignorant they are just commenting without watching the video first.

It's not reasonable to argue that because you don't like stuff Boyd did later in life that everything he did before is incorrect. The fact is that at the time "Aerial Attack Study" was first published there had not been a single beyond visual range air to air kill in actual combat. NOT A SINGLE ONE. Furthermore, all of them between 1965 and 1982 can literally be counted on one hand. This was the time during which Boyd had influence in the F15 and F16 development.

As for the accusation that he just copied the energy maneuverability theory from someone else and took the credit, that's a misrepresentation. Boyd didn't invent it, and he credited the creator in the book. What Boyd did is take it from a pure NON pilot engineering theory and apply it to actual techniques in a dogfight and he wrote it down in those terms.

Now if someone has a problem with the weight being given to Boyd's work in CURRENT air to air combat, I'm right there with you, but the fact is that in 1964 the stuff in Aerial Attack Study was on solid ground and for close in dogfighting to an extent it still is.

Links:

Attack study: http://oplaunch.com/resources/aerial...
Energy Maneuverability study: https://www.archives.gov/files/declas...

Central Videos used in this production:    • Video  
   • Video  

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