The effectiveness tests conducted by Boyd proved to be the last step before he began briefing top generals on E-M. The tests
were flown by a group of young pilots, several of whom would go on to extraordinary achievements. Tom McInerney was the primary
pilot. He
eventually became a three-star general. Douglas “Pete” Peterson, later to be shot down in Vietnam and still later to return
to Vietnam as America’s ambassador, also flew E-M profiles. Perhaps the most colorful member of the group was Bobby Kan, a
Korean who signed documents as “WGOFP”—World’s Greatest Oriental Fighter Pilot. Kan was shot down in Vietnam, and when the
rescue helicopter came to pick him up, the crew saw his Asian features and thought a North Vietnamese was trying to get aboard.
The helicopter quickly departed. Kan released such a stream of creative profanity over the radio that the helicopter crew
knew the man on the ground had to be an American and returned to pick him up.
McInerney had heard a great deal about Boyd when he arrived at Eglin. Boyd took McInerney to his office, showed him stacks
and stacks of mathematical computations, laughed and said he had stolen hundreds of hours of computer time to prepare the
charts. He then told McInerney in great detail how the tests would be flown. The purpose of each flight was to verify Boyd’s
theoretical computations, to see if an airplane would do in flight what the E-M charts said it would do.
Each day at 6:00
A.M
. one of the pilots took off from Eglin in an F-100, F-105, or F-4 and flew over the Gulf of Mexico to the “start box.” A
computer was bolted to the rear seat. Each mission had a precise profile. If the pilot were flying an F-4, he would climb
to about thirty thousand feet (the exact altitude depended on the temperature), light the afterburner, point the nose down
at a certain pitch angle (usually about five degrees), and descend until he was indicating six hundred knots. This usually
happened at about twenty-six thousand feet. Then he pulled the nose up to about fifteen degrees and held it until he was indicating
Mach 2.
Boyd called the slight dive followed by a climb the “dipsy doodle.” It was derived by Boyd and Christie’s computer-optimized
flight paths and was the quickest way for an F-4 to reach Mach 2. After the pilot reached Mach 2, he came out of burner, noted
his fuel weights, and did another dipsy doodle. Another mission was to verify the optimum airspeed and G-load necessary to
sustain a 360-degree turn. Every maneuver, every variation, was laid out in careful mission profiles. Boyd had worked on this
for several years and knew exactly what needed to be done.
When the pilots landed, Boyd was waiting. A van that served as the flight-line taxi stood nearby, engine idling. Boyd took
the data from the computers, jumped into the line taxi, and raced across the base to have the information compared to E-M
charts. With the exception of inaccurate performance data from Wright-Pat and small errors induced by variations in aircraft
performance, every mission proved almost exactly what the E-M charts predicted. (Years later, when he was ambassador to Vietnam,
Douglas Peterson said the pilots who flew E-M profiles for Boyd knew from the beginning this was not another busy-work project
of the Air Force. He said everyone involved “sensed that this was breakthrough work that would ultimately impact on aircraft
design and, as we saw immediately, on air-combat tactics.”)
People in the Flight Dynamics Lab at Wright-Pat heard of Boyd’s work and were working day and night to disprove the E-M Theory.
It was embarrassing in the extreme to have a fighter pilot from Eglin develop a theory that should have been developed there
at WrightPat. The comptroller at Eglin was lying in wait; he knew that sooner or later Boyd would make a mistake that could
not be shielded by a general. But now that the E-M report was circulating and its information had been backed up by flight
tests, Boyd could not be held back. The Mad Major was ready to take on the U.S. Air Force.
T
HE
last half of 1964 and the first half of 1965 was a glorious time for Boyd.
It began when Boyd briefed a group of pilots from TAC headquarters. Because they were fighter pilots and because they were
from TAC headquarters, he included for the first time data showing the superiority of Soviet aircraft. The pilots were stunned.
Naturally they asked Boyd if he was sure of his facts. He told them about going back to Foreign Tech and reconfirming all
the inputs, of reprogramming the computer, and of having an outsider check everything. “If it’s wrong, I can’t find where
the mistakes are,” he said.
The headquarters people shook their heads in dismay. “Wait until Sweeney hears this,” one said. “He is going to come unglued.”
Sweeney was General Walter Campbell Sweeney Jr., head of the Tactical Air Command.
One Thursday in the fall of 1964, Boyd received a phone call from a colonel serving on General Sweeney’s staff. “The general
has heard of your briefing,” the colonel said. “I believe you call it energy-maneuverability. He would like you to deliver
the brief Monday at o-eight-hundred in his office at Langley.”
“Yes, Sir,” Boyd said.
The colonel hung up before Boyd could ask any of the questions swirling through his mind, the most important being: “How much
time do I have?” The E-M brief, depending on the number of questions asked, could last three or four hours. Would Sweeney
block out that much time? Who else would be in the room? Did Sweeney simply want information or was this to be a decision
briefing?
Whatever the answers, Boyd was elated. Sweeney “owned” every fighter aircraft in the Tactical Air Command. If Boyd could show
how Sweeney’s fighters compared with Soviet aircraft, and if Sweeney accepted the briefing, not only would E-M become part
of Air Force doctrine, but the Air Force would have a powerful argument in convincing Congress to fund its proposed new fighter.
Four-star generals rarely receive briefings from someone as far down the food chain as a major. It was presumptuous enough
for a major to come up with a radical new theory that caused so much talk, but now he was stepping into the office of one
of the most powerful generals in the Air Force. This would be the most important briefing of Boyd’s life. Sweeney would be
accompanied by his retinue—bright people all, most of whom would consider it their bounden duty to disprove this new E-M Theory.
Boyd had one unsettling thought: at Eglin he was under the ultimate command of General Bernard Schriever, head of the Air
Force Systems Command, who had not yet been briefed on E-M. To brief the four-star who headed another command before briefing
the four-star who headed his own command was a serious breach of military protocol. Not only that, but Sweeney would call
Schriever and want to know why the hell he was giving TAC inferior airplanes.
Unfortunately, Schriever was out of the country, but at Boyd’s request his deputy called Sweeney and postponed Boyd’s briefing.
Then Boyd delivered his brief to Schriever’s top people, all of whom demanded the information be checked and confirmed. Even
after Boyd told them of the laborious process he had gone through, one of the officers left the briefing, called Foreign Tech,
and was told Boyd’s data were correct. The briefing quickly became acrimonious, and Boyd was the target.
“You are trying to say we do not know what we are doing,” said an angry colonel. “You are telling us we are buying the wrong
airplanes when we have the best minds in the Air Force on this.” Across the
room a general was going through a book that listed Eglin research projects. “I am missing something here,” the general says.
“Where in the hell is this energy-maneuverability project? Did you list it under another name?”
“It’s not in there,” Boyd says.
“I just heard you talk about the resources to make this thing go. There is no way you can get those resources in the computer
without having a project.”
“I can steal computer time on any computer in this command and you would never know it,” Boyd said.
“Are you telling me you stole the computer time?”
“I am being honest with you.”
The general locked eyes with Boyd and barked, “Everybody out but Boyd.”
“If you are wrong,” the general told Boyd, “we are going to court-martial you.” In the end no one could find any mistakes
in Boyd’s briefing, and he was cleared to brief General Sweeney.
Now the resources of TAC were his to command. He flew to Nellis to gather more information and pick out additional slides
for the briefing. Nothing but the best for General Sweeney.
“You’re going with me,” he told Raspberry. “You flip the charts and advance the slides while I do the brief.” The two men
sorted through and rearranged a stack of slides Raspberry estimated to be more than a foot tall. Boyd worried over every selection,
worried that the slides and graphs could be of better quality. Finally the two men gathered all the briefing equipment, climbed
into an F-100F, and flew across country to Langley AFB in Virginia. They arrived late in the afternoon.
A young major, the aide to General Sweeney, met them on the ramp. “I hope you are prepared for a full brief before General
Sweeney and his staff,” the aide said.
Technically speaking a briefing is a briefing. There is no distinction between a brief and a full brief. Nevertheless, the
phrase “full brief” gives pause. It implies a more serious briefing, greater formality, all the unwritten briefing rules peculiar
to each commander, and—most of all—an uninhibited salvo of questions. A full brief can be bloody. If it goes wrong it can
wreck a career.
“How much time do we have?” Boyd asked.
“Twenty minutes.”
Boyd grimaced. “Twenty minutes? That’s not enough time to—”
“Twenty minutes.” The aide handed a set of car keys to Boyd and pointed to a blue Cadillac Coupe deVille gleaming in the afternoon
sun. “My car. Use it tonight. Go out and get a good meal. I’ll see you at o-eight-hundred tomorrow.”
“Good meal” sounded too much like “last meal” to Boyd and Raspberry. They checked into the visiting officers’ quarters, ate
quickly, then came back and practiced the brief far into the night. Razz threw questions at Boyd, the questions Sweeney’s
staff was most likely to ask.
If told to shorten a four-hour briefing to twenty minutes, most officers would simply condense the briefing. Not Boyd. He
would start at the beginning and proceed as if he had all the time he needed. By a few minutes after seven the next morning,
Boyd and Razz were in the briefing room down the hall from the big corner office that is the lair of the TAC commander. Boyd
tested the projector, adjusted the screen, chewed on his hand, made sure the slides and charts were in the proper order, moved
the lectern a quarter inch, slid the pointer a half-inch down its rack, and chewed on his hand some more. He paced, practicing
the brief in his head.
By 7:45
A.M
. most of General Sweeney’s staff was seated. A colonel noticed Boyd was not wearing the lapel microphone placed atop the
lectern.
“Major, the microphone is for your use,” he said.
“I don’t need a microphone,” Boyd said.
“Our rules are that briefers wear the microphone.”
“Yes, Sir.” Boyd clamped on the microphone.
At precisely 8:00
A.M
. the general and his aide entered.
“You may begin, Major Boyd,” the general said.
And the Plum was off and running—smooth, easy, confident, and professional. He had to turn down the volume on the microphone
several times. Sweeney was attentive. But the briefing clearly pained him. He was agitated, shifting in his chair and grimacing.
At 8:20 Razz gave Boyd a signal. Boyd stopped, said, “Thank you, General. Unless you have questions, that will be all.”
“Where do you think you’re going?” asked Sweeney.
“Sir, your aide said we had twenty minutes. We’ve used up our time.”
“Continue the brief.”
“Yes, Sir.”
Sweeney turned to his aide. “Cancel my appointments for today.” He glared at Boyd. “What you’re saying can’t be right.”
“I believe it to be correct, sir.”
“Who else have you briefed on this? What was their reaction?”
Boyd told Sweeney whom he had briefed and said their reaction was “the same as yours, General.”
Sweeney turned to one of his staff members and said, “Get my intelligence guy on this. And call those people in Foreign Tech
and make sure these numbers are right.”
A few minutes later Sweeney’s intelligence specialist returned and said, “They have a copy of Major Boyd’s brief, Sir. They
say his data is correct.”
“How many airplanes did you run this on?” Sweeney asked.
“All of them, Sir. I’ve just shown you the interesting ones so far. But I’ll be glad to run them all for you.”
“Continue.”
And continue he did. All that day Boyd briefed Sweeney. He whispered, he cajoled, he confided. He could not smoke while briefing
a four-star but he could roam the stage and wave his arms and raise his voice. As the day wore on, he grew cocky. This was
the brief that would change the Air Force. When Boyd was at his best—and he was at the top of his form that day—he was one
of the best briefers in the Air Force. The Plum was in full bay.
During breaks, aides rushed in and out and the general delivered orders. And the briefing resumed. The questions grew tougher
and more frequent, but Boyd answered them all courteously, completely, and confidently. General Sweeney followed each exchange
and occasionally nodded.
The office of a four-star general is not unlike the court of a pasha, replete with all the trappings of high rank as well
as intrigue and constant jockeying for favor. The general controls the careers and lives of those on his staff. For an outsider
to seize a day of the general’s time and to have the general’s undivided attention is seen by some on his staff as a threat.
Several members of Sweeney’s staff began to ask questions designed to embarrass Boyd, to throw off his timing, to reveal how
shallow this new theory was.