> while vastly increasing its flexibility and its ability to engage at long-range - decisions which in retrospect were massively beneficial.
Also vastly increasing the cost of the machine, and decreasing its range. Boyd's vision was of huge numbers of cheap lightweight fighters dominating the skies. They could shoot down anything, evade any threat. Combine them with the unmatched pilot instructor training offered at the FWS and the Air Force would be a truly awesome beast.
Other roles such as CAS could be handled by other planes like the A-10. Boyd's critical insight was that you don't want much flexibility in an aircraft. Make it supremely effective, and it would find a versatility on its own. Just as the superior training of the F-4 pilots (instructed by Boyd himself and his peers) allowed them to be effective despite inferior hardware. A master with an old, rusty sword will beat a novice with Excalibur every time. But give him a gun and he's got a fighting chance.
> In other words, Boyd's vision of where air combat was heading wasn't really spot on.
I would say that air combat could have evolved the way Boyd had envisioned it, but didn't because he was marginalized. Evolution doesn't just happen, someone or something makes it happen. And then the results are looked at as inevitable, when they really aren't. Boyd was probably ahead of his time when it comes to combined arms strategy.
Eventually the Russians or someone else will put his vision into action and mop the floor with their adversaries, proving him right. After all, a good radar and long range capabilities are no good if you can't even keep your bird in the air long enough to put them to work.
Also vastly increasing the cost of the machine, and decreasing its range. Boyd's vision was of huge numbers of cheap lightweight fighters dominating the skies. They could shoot down anything, evade any threat. Combine them with the unmatched pilot instructor training offered at the FWS and the Air Force would be a truly awesome beast.
Other roles such as CAS could be handled by other planes like the A-10. Boyd's critical insight was that you don't want much flexibility in an aircraft. Make it supremely effective, and it would find a versatility on its own. Just as the superior training of the F-4 pilots (instructed by Boyd himself and his peers) allowed them to be effective despite inferior hardware. A master with an old, rusty sword will beat a novice with Excalibur every time. But give him a gun and he's got a fighting chance.
> In other words, Boyd's vision of where air combat was heading wasn't really spot on.
I would say that air combat could have evolved the way Boyd had envisioned it, but didn't because he was marginalized. Evolution doesn't just happen, someone or something makes it happen. And then the results are looked at as inevitable, when they really aren't. Boyd was probably ahead of his time when it comes to combined arms strategy.
Eventually the Russians or someone else will put his vision into action and mop the floor with their adversaries, proving him right. After all, a good radar and long range capabilities are no good if you can't even keep your bird in the air long enough to put them to work.