"john smith" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"Kyle Boatright" wrote:

"john smith" wrote in message
...
I have been downloading Col. John Boyd's works to study and stumbled
upon this...

http://www.pogo.org/p/defense/da-050301-fa22.html

I haven't read it yet, but plan to later tonight.

Remember that if Riccione and Boyd had their way, the F-15 wouldn't have
been built, and the F-16 would have had even more limited radar, bomb
aiming, and avionics suites. Those guys wanted the F-16 to be
essentially
an F-86 with a far better power to weight ratio.

Now, they are proposing further upgrades to the fighter (the F-15) they
railed against and the fighter they wanted to be a minimalist dogfighter.

Kyle, you need to dig into the information available.
Boyd actually saved the F-15 program. The original design was to be a
swing wing like the F-14. Boyd's work showed the deficiencies in that
design and the improvements resulting in the final design.
You can also read aabout the F-14's design deficiencies.
The F-14 and F-15 were designed around the big radar for long range
detection.
The F-16 was designed to be a lightweight, close-in, air-superiority
fighter, it didn't need the big radar.
GOOGLE "John Boyd" and wade through the material. You will find much
that counters what you have been mislead to believe.

That is my understanding also. Boyd fought to make the F-15 better, not to
cancel it. He saw the need for a large plane with its big radar, but also
wanted the small plane with the smaller radar.

If you read the history of Boyd and the F-16, he kept its very good range a
secret for as long as he could. He "sold" it as a short range fighter, but
it actually had more range than the F-15 did.

Danny Deger

Danny Deger