Fighter mafia

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. The theory enabled quantitative one-to-one comparison of the performance of aircraft in terms of 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 a counterair force must be able to destroy aircraft in the air at long ranges using advanced weapon systems. The Air Force felt that these needs would be filled for the next twenty years by missile-armed variants of the F-111 and F-4 Phantom II.cite book
last = Jenkins
first = Dennis R.
authorlink =
coauthors =
title = F/A-18 Hornet: A Navy Success Story
publisher = McGraw-Hill
date = 2000
location = New York
url =
doi =
id = ISBN 0071346961 ] Their F-X fighter acquisition program, initially merged into the TFX program (which developed the F-111), was written along those lines.

Real-world combat during the Vietnam war demonstrated that the entire "missileer" concept did not work in practice. Rules of engagement, limitations in communications, poor performance of the missiles and a wide variety of other problems conspired to make air-to-air combat devolve into dogfights in almost every situation. In spite of a huge technical superiority on paper, the US Navy and Air Force F-4's found themselves fighting at close quarters with the "inferior" MiG-21, and losing the fight all too often. The heavy and poorly maneuverable fighters imagined as part of F-X would be even worse off in these situations.

Boyd's work with E-M theory demonstrated that the F-111 would be poorly suited to the role of fighter, and the Air Force F-X 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. The result was the F-15 Eagle, an aircraft that was far superior in maneuverability to the F-111 fighter variants. The Air Force had also been studying a lighter day fighter; starting in 1965, the Air Force had pursued a low-priority study of the Advanced Day Fighter (ADF), a 25,000 pound design. After they learned of the MiG-25 in 1967, a minor panic broke out and the ADF was dropped in order to focus work on the F-15. The F-15, originally a lighter aircraft, grew in size and weight as it attempted to match the inflated performance estimates of the MiG-25. While Boyd's contributions to the F-15 were significant, he felt that it was still a compromise.cite book
last = Coram
first = Robert
authorlink =
coauthors =
title = Boyd: the fighter pilot who changed the art of war
publisher = Little, Brown, and Co.
date = 2002
location = New York
url =
doi =
id = ISBN 0-316-88146-5]

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". 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.

Defense Secretary Melvin Laird and Deputy Defense Secretary David 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. 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 secretly maintained in Nevada, as well as 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-10, which has had an outstanding record in that area). [cite web
last = Cunningham
first = Jim
authorlink =
coauthors =
title = Rediscovering Air Superiority: Vietnam, the F-X, and the 'Fighter Mafia'
work = Air & Space Power Journal - Chronicles Online Journal
publisher =
date =
url = http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/cc/jim.html
format =
doi =
accessdate = 2006-08-10]

References

Notes

Bibliography

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*cite web
last = Hehs
first = Eric
authorlink =
coauthors =
title = Harry Hillaker — Father of the F-16
work =
publisher = Code One: An Airpower Projection Magazine
date = April/July 1991
url = http://www.codeonemagazine.com/archives/1991/articles/jul_91/july2a_91.html
format =
doi =
accessdate =
*cite web
last = Hillaker
first = Harry
authorlink =
coauthors =
title = John Boyd, USAF Retired, Father of the F16
work =
publisher = Code One: An Airpower Projection Magazine
date = April/July 1997
url = http://www.codeonemagazine.com/archives/1997/articles/jul_97/july2a_97.html
format =
doi =
accessdate =