Re: Year in Review

["The Dark Tangent" <dtangent () defcon org>]

I'm a big Boyd fan, having studied his works on and off for years, applied
to different mediums. I'd say Maverick was actually modeled on him. They
were at the same air school, and they both pulled crazy aerial maneuvers to
startle and confuse their opponents.

> From his Arlington Cemetery page:

" Though he hit his stride as a flier a half-century ago, Boyd remains a
legend among fighter pilots. Training young aviators in Nevada during the
1950s, he became known as "40-second Boyd'' because of his offer to pay $20
to any opponent who could evade him for more than 40 seconds in air-to-air
maneuvers; none ever did. "

I think he was a classic hacker, actually.

" As the speech suggests, Boyd was incorruptible and contemptuous of those
-- in uniform or out -- he saw as attempting to push inferior ideas or sell
inferior products to the military.

As a major he was nearly court-martialed for cursing out a Colonel and
calling him and a roomful of other officers liars. He rescued his career by
convincing a General he was right.

Coram describes how a defense contractor once sent its top aircraft designer
to meet with Boyd during early planning for what would become the F-16. The
man brought aerodynamic estimates for a plane that Boyd quickly recognized
as bogus.

Boyd studied the figures, leaned over the charts and said, "I can
extrapolate this thing back to where the wing has zero lift. Wow. This
airplane is so good that not only does it have zero lift, it has negative
drag. . . . If this thing has negative drag, that means it has thrust
without turning on the engines. That means when it is on the ramp with all
that thrust, even with the engine turned off, you got to tie the . . . thing
down or it will take off by itself.''

Boyd ended the conversation: The "airplane is made out of balonium.''"

Read all about this amazing man who changed the way war is thought about:
http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/jrboyd.htm

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