Juvat wrote in message . ..
After an exhausting session with Victoria's Secret Police, Kevin
Brooks blurted out:

How many of those opponents to the F-4, or even the F-16, were in the
USAF, though?

Against the F-4? Hmmm, guys flying single seat fighters that carried a
gun. "Two seats? WTF do you do with the wasted space?"

Any real evidence of this alleged opposition to the F-4? Let's see,
the F-100. etc., were apparently going to have some problems with the
range requirements into North Vietnam, the F-105, while proving to be
a prettty rugged and capable strike platform that did indeed down a
few Migs, was not exactly what those fighter pilots were thinking of
when you say, "fighter aircraft"...where was this opposition again?


How about the HQ Staff folks that were concerrned that if the F-16
were fielded, the F-15 program would suffer. How could the F-15
program suffer? Some bright person would figure a way to task the F-15
for surface attack ("not a pound for air-to-ground") and give the
air-to-air role to the F-16. In Trest's book on Boyd, he mentions the
concerns the F-15 supporters had about the F-16.

I don't recall the opposition against the F-16 as being anything like
that that the A-10 faced early on, as well as later in its career--and
where is all of that anti-F-16 later opposition?


And there were more than a few officers above John Boyd that flat out
didn't like him, ergo his pet project.

Not sure how accurate that is; from what I have read, the F-16 was
planned as a multi-role platform during its initial development phase,
well before it ever entered into service.

Read Trest's book on John Boyd. His proposal for the F-16 didn't even
include a radar, much less thinking of carrying a bomb. Boyd's concept
was air-to-air all the way.

Thank goodness that his concept was not what ended up rolling off the
assembly line then, as we know that the F-16 was indeed planned for
multirole use from very early in its development.

Brooks


Juvat