Patterns of Conflict Slide 4

Patterns of Conflict

Patterns of Conflict Slide 4

Quantico Transcription

In a sense, at that time I said we needed a fighter that can both lose energy and gain energy more quickly while out-turning an adversary. So you’ll understand what I’m saying, I’ll tell you what I mean by energy.

Energy, I want to talk about energy. You can think of potential energy, and kinetic energy. Potential being related to what—altitude—and kinetic related to what? Velocity or speed. So therefore, if I’m going gain more energy than my adversary, I’m either going to gain altitude, airspeed, or some combination thereof. If I’m going to lose energy, I’m either going to have to give up altitude, airspeed, or some combination thereof, to lose energy. The reason why we use it, because there’s a nice neat expression, it shows you how one’s related to the other, it’s convenience is why we use it, while out-turning an adversary.

You say, well, my God, Boyd, that’s a trivial statement. It is today, it wasn’t then, because the perception at that time was that you either want to conserve or gain energy while trying to outmaneuver an adversary. But sometimes you may want to dump it overboard very quickly if you want to gain leverage on him. And other times you might want to add it very quickly, or maybe not so quickly depending on the circumstances.

But the prevailing dictum at that time was gain energy or conserve it. They didn’t even want to talk about losing it. So, what we found out though, when we saw the guys doing the flight test, they were doing that kind of stuff. Quite different [unintelligible]. In other words, suggest a fighter that can pick up and choose engagement options. There was a pilot then annoying [unintelligible] express what do you want, the answer was, well, I want an airplane that I have the choice of engagement opportunities over an adversary, I can pick and choose. Not bad. He might not understand it, but he’s right.

But now he gives that to the designer, and the designer starts fretting, who the hell’s this guy talking about? Doesn’t know. But if you push the argument, he says he doesn’t say it this way, he said really what I want is an airplane that I can either force an overshoot by an attacker, or stay inside a hard-turning defender. So let me use my hands here like a pilot does. I’m going to make an attack on him. So someone’s making an attack on you, in the rear, what you want is the ability to bend that airplane, shove him out in front, get in behind him, hose the son of a bitch down.

[25:00] Or contrary-wise, if you’re making an attack, guess what: you don’t want to be in the same position. Well, what does that suggest? That if both guys know that, they’re going to pull the crap out the airplane under certain circumstances, right? Hold onto it. So if you just pull, you know, turn tight, well, if you turn tight, Christ, literally you spiral yourself into the ground, you can’t do that. Pilot’s not going to do that. So that’s why he wants to pick and choose engagement opportunities. He wants to get in, get out, get in, and get out.

Why does he want to do that? Because it’s not just one-to-one air-to-air combat up here. It’s what the pilots like to say, many-upon-many. In other words, if you’re working over one guy, somebody else is going come in and blindside you. So you want to spend as little time with a guy as possible. You need to get in, gun him, and get the hell out. Because otherwise you get tunnel vision, blindsided, you become a statistic at that point. If you knew there was nobody else there, nope, you don’t. You got to be very careful. So a one-to-one joust is quite different than a melee of many airplanes going against many airplanes. Just like ground warfare. You’re trying to protect yourself one way, you can get taken out from a different direction. Same way.

So they know they want to get in there fast and get out. Need a hard turn for a very short period of time, add it back on the energy, take it off, put it on, whatever the case may be. So they can get their leverage, and knock out the adversary. So what does this suggest? It suggests something like what I call “fast transients”. Today we’ll call it “agility,” which I’ll define for you later. Hoppy, skippy, jerky kind of maneuver, where the other guy obviously can’t do it as rapidly. So what does that suggest?

A couple of things. Think of it in space and time. In space, you’re trying to stay inside his maneuver; in time, you want to do it over a very short period of time, otherwise you’re going to become vulnerable to somebody else. So if you think about it in that sense, you say, hey, wait a minute, maybe we can generalize that whole notion. Expand upon it and generalize the whole notion, not just air-to-air combat. Because you begin to think, geez, if I can operate at a faster tempo than somebody in business or elsewhere, you know, that could be a very useful thing. So let’s expand upon that.

Lightfoot Transcription

So out of that activity we came up with this sort of a generalization in a related State the fact we needed to fight on

17:10 swingy ter this both lose energy and 17:12 gain energy more quickly 17:14 turning so before we deal with that 17:17 statement what do I mean by energy 17:20 energy think of in the sense I'm need 17:22 mechanic sum of your potential and your 17:24 kinetic energy potential being 17:26 altitude kinetic being a 17:29 the point thing is if I'm going to Mo 17:31 someone I'm going to gain energy I 17:32 either have to gain altitude air speed 17:34 or some combination there if I'm going 17:36 to lose energy I'm going have to lose 17:37 all aired or some combination there and 17:41 the reason why we use energy is because 17:43 it shows you the relationship between 17:45 these two kinds of things or two kinds 17:47 of things describe 17:48 as that's why very conven very useful in

17:52 that sense you say my God 17:56 State a few years ago was because the 17:59 general perception then was you want to 18:00 gain or conserve energy while trying to 18:02 out 18:06 that you might want top it out had an 18:09 extraordinary amount 18:12 time I remember very when I grilled some 18:16 of the fighter PS we ran these tests 18:18 Fighters against other adversar this one 18:21 p I really didn't want to lose that 18:22 energy I was trying to do something else 18:24 but I still W I said well when it had 18:25 value when you pumped it 18:27 up so even they were tend to fight I so 18:31 you really want to reflect upon it when 18:33 you desirable result words from out 18:36 of 18:38 G so it even took some time for people 18:41 who are so-called experts in fight or 18:44 combat gain a field and acceptance of 18:47 that idea very often 18:48 Happ so that was one of the things so we 18:52 found that out and of course that's the 18:54 thing you'll see has led me into 18:56 throwing into the whole pattern of talk 18:58 get right 18:59 in other words pilot also said other 19:01 kind of things in other words they they 19:03 really wanted was that airplanes were by 19:05 they could dominate the circumstances 19:07 engag they could pick the engagement 19:10 off they 19:15 design but they go on they become more 19:18 specific they say in a sense they want a 19:20 fighter where they can either Force 19:22 overshoot plan attacker or stay inside a 19:24 heart attorney defend let me explain to 19:27 you what I mean by over let me use my 19:28 hands fighter if I'm going to make an 19:30 attack upon somebody a guy bends the 19:32 airplane very hard then I'm forced over 19:33 to shoot fight that and he can come in 19:35 behind me and I'm in a bad position or 19:37 contrary wise I'm want to defend I want 19:39 Force the guy to go shoot my flight 19:41 passway slide in behind and take him 19:44 call Classic maneuver all your things 19:46 are doing is to tr to get that Precision 19:48 so on the offense if you don't want to 19:49 be forcing over on the defense you want 19:52 to get 19:54 that we think about that we see the 19:56 spatial relationship in some sense then 19:58 in a very general sense you want to 20:00 force your 20:01 adversary in a wider maneuver space than 20:04 you are so you can get inside in other 20:05 words you want to get inside his maneu 20:06 space you can gain leverage 20:09 him this specific 20:12 generaliz now as it turns out in order 20:15 to make those hard Maneuvers it's not an 20:16 easy maneuver May easy but then the drag 20:19 goes up enormously above the thrust of 20:21 the engine when drag goes up above trust 20:24 you have to mude inter speed or some 20:26 combination or of and you bend those so 20:29 hard build the drag up so hard you 20:31 literally go down almost like a o 20:33 elevator lose energy very quickly and 20:35 spir yourself right in the ground not 20:36 going to do that for one thing and the 20:39 other thing is remember it's not just a 20:41 dual oneon-one there's other people 20:42 working in the weeds up there and so 20:45 when you're trying to work against 20:46 somebody somebody else will try to 20:47 Blindside you and take you out so the 20:50 point is you don't want to be engaged 20:51 too long any you want to get in do the 20:53 job get out you didn't do the job get 20:54 out because when you're working on some 20:55 somebody may be working on 20:57 you 20:59 other words it's not healthy to get what 21:00 we call Tel vision and keep your eyes 21:03 and one gu there because somebody else 21:04 going to take you up that's where the 21:07 word comes from T Vision heard that ter 21:10 don't get tun 21:11 Vision got to stay alert all the time so 21:15 you don't want to get wrapped up too 21:16 long get your feet engagement short well 21:19 if you think about that you're getting 21:21 these very hard Maneuvers that you're 21:22 doing for very short intervals of 21:25 time so they're very jerky they're very 21:28 hot 21:29 very 21:30 ski so you got a space problem you got a 21:32 Time problem jerky mov

21:34 time we call that TR other words you're 21:37 very fet you notice underline the term 21:39 fast transing double underline 21:42 Manu and which we're trying to get 21:44 inside our adies space or deny him that 21:46 same opportunity against us and we're 21:48 going to do this over very short 21:49 intervals of time so we don't get 21:50 blindsided by somebody else so in some 21:53 sense that gives a basis for controlling 21:55 the engagement 21:57 opportunity 22:01 call now if you think about that when 22:03 you say that's a very specific situation 22:06 that's just for combat but then the idea 22:08 begins to occur so you Che very sharp 22:10 turning or poy Skippy jumpy kind of 22:12 things in life could be useful maybe 22:14 other kinds of competitive Behavior 22:15 where a guy can't get an image or a 22:17 picture what's going on in other words 22:20 can we generalize or can we expand upon 22:22 that idea and if we do where does that 22:25 go that's exactly what we're going to do 22:27 right now 22:29 so that that