Fighter mafia
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The Fighter Mafia was a group of U.S. Air Force officers and civilian defense analysts who, in the 1970s, advocated the use of John Boyd's Energy-Maneuverability (E-M) theory to develop fighter aircraft. Specifically, the theory enabled quantitative 1-1 comparison of the performance of aircraft relative to air combat maneuvering, and identified deficiencies with both designs in service and proposed designs of the time. The cabal influenced the specifications of the F-X, and went on to independently develop specifications for the Light Weight Fighter.
In the 1960s, both the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy were in the process of acquiring large, heavy fighters designed primarily to fight with missiles. Project Forecast, a 1963 Air Force attempt to identify future weapons trends, stated that Air Force needs for the next 20 years would be met by missile-armed variants of the F-111 and F-4, and that a counterair force must be able to destroy aircraft in the air at long ranges using advanced weapon systems.[1] Their F-X fighter acquisition program, initially merged into the TFX program (program which developed the F-111), was written along those lines. Based on the work of John Boyd and his E-M theory, the Air Force proposal was quietly rewritten to reflect his findings, dropping a heavy swing-wing from the design, lowering the gross weight from 60,000+ pounds to slightly below 40,000, and the top speed to Mach 2.3, from 2.5. However, while Boyd's contributions were significant, he felt that it was still a compromise.[2]
Boyd, defense analysts Tom Christie and Pierre Sprey, and test pilot Col. Everest Riccioni formed the core of the self-named "fighter mafia" which worked behind the scenes in the late 1960s to pursue a lightweight fighter as an alternative to the F-15. Riccioni coined the nickname, a joke on his Italian heritage, and dubbed himself the godfather, though most consider Boyd the leader of the group. In 1969, under the guise that the Navy was developing a small, high-performance Navy aircraft, Riccioni won $149,000 to fund the "Study to Validate the Integration of Advanced Energy-Maneuverability Theory with Trade-Off Analysis". This money was split between Northrop and General Dynamics to build the embodiment of Boyd's E-M theory - a small, low-draw, low-weight, pure fighter with no bomb racks. Northrop demanded and received $100,000 to design the YF-17; General Dynamics, eager to redeem its debacle with the F-111, received the remainder to develop the YF-16.[2]
The Air Force had considered a similar concept earlier. In 1965, the Air Force had pursued a low-priority study of a lightweight Advanced Day Fighter (ADF), a 25-000 pound fighter. But it was shelved in 1967 after the announcement of the Mig-25 in order to focus work on the F-15. Defense Secretary Melvin Laird and Deputy Defense Secretary David A. Packard, who entered office with the Nixon administration in 1969, were interested in these studies and threw their support behind the notion. In May 1971, Congress issued a critical report of the F-14 and F-15 and advocated spending $50 million on developing an alternative lightweight fighter. This was followed by the assignment of $12 million in the 1972 fiscal year budget for the LWF. On January 6, 1971, an RFP was issued to industry for a 20,000 pound fighter to complement the F-15.[1] Sprey insisted on a fly-off between two prototypes, as he had earlier on the A-X program, pitting the planes against MiG-17s and Mig-21s kept at Nellis, and an F-4. Furthermore, the evaluating pilots would not be test pilots and each would fly both airframes.
In retrospect, the group's greatest contribution was in the introduction of E-M as a basis for evaluating and designing aircraft for air combat maneuvering. However, their disdain of "gold-plating", or technological add-ons, would prove wrong, as the same technology would protect aircraft from missiles in an increasingly sensor-saturated battlefield, and would enable the multi-mission capabilities of modern aircraft (though in fairness, they often argued that the ground attack mission should be handled by more appropriate aircraft such as the A-X, which has had an outstanding record in that area).[3]
[edit] References
- ^ a b Jenkins, Dennis R. (2000). F/A-18 Hornet: A Navy Success Story. New York: McGraw-Hill. ISBN 0071346961.
- ^ a b Coram, Robert (2002). Boyd: the fighter pilot who changed the art of war. New York: Little, Brown, and Co.. ISBN 0-316-88146-5.
- ^ Cunningham, Jim. Rediscovering Air Superiority: Vietnam, the F-X, and the 'Fighter Mafia'. Air & Space Power Journal - Chronicles Online Journal. Retrieved on 2006-08-10.
- The 'Fighter Mafia' (1999). Retrieved on 2006-08-10.
