John Boyd and his band of acolytes theories DID NOT work in the 70's. Their pet project, the F-16 LWF, had to go through massive upgrades to become a practical weapon system before entering service

As good as the F-15's visibility is, has any fighter pilot actually had the loosenes to look straight back?

oh rly?

Wasnt the 65 to nil kill ratio donne in its early years? If thats a failiure to you I cant possibly imagine what a success would be in your point of view.

The fact that the falcon got upgraded as much as it did was because of other needs than matching the numbers of Mig-21 Soviets were fielding when it got in service, plus after 1991 it became clear that it no longer needed to exclusively play that role due to lack of quality opposotion. Hence the necessities swiched more to the side of gound pounding .

The fact the falcon got upgraded as much as it did was a virtue rather than a flaw, I can still remenber people dissing it early on talking that its growth potential was virtualy non existant, they were proved wrong.
But you cant please all critics.

Tinito_16 wrote:
As good as the F-15's visibility is, has any fighter pilot actually had the loosenes to look straight back?


Yes. In EOR Eagle pilots typically turn around and look at the inside of the opposite vert stab to get their backs and necks loosened up, especially on BFM sorties. Weapon School phase manuals usually address specifically how to position your body to look aft on DBFM rides.

The only thing I think he Raptor should use more of is rearward visibility. However, that also depends on what other things would need to be sacrificed for the rearward view. As good as the F-15's visibility is, has any fighter pilot actually had the loosenes to look straight back?

But that's not what it was designed for. It was designed as a dogfighter. But the USAF wouldn't let the F-16 be that. They changed it to a multi-role fighter.
Our NATO allies bought it to replace the F-104.
They also added a different radar and bomb racks. Thus getting away from Boyd's idea.

Select USAF F-15C's also began to use the mirrors, but I cannot seem to recall seeing them anymore. Maybe sun glint was a problem. Check could probably answer if they are still in use.

Boyd and his bubbas were also on the low cost bandwagon...

Boyd and his bubbas were also on the low cost bandwagon...

Boyd knew his sh*t anf that there should be no doubt of. He knew what made a fighter a fighter. Boyd's lack of knowledge was his Achilles heel... He knew nothing of electronic warfare and not much beyond how to shape aluminum into an effective "dog fighter". Boyd was a genius, but one was one of those uneducated types... the type who was stuck in the mold that he was cast in, in the 50's. He's what I call a "farm boy" engineer. Boyd had a lot of things right, including the low cost aspects of this business. Look. were getting 183 new airframes of a new plane. I'd rather give up a little on capabilities (which is what elevates cost greatly) to get more airframes. Remember, its the final 10% of capability that adds +30% of the cost (or something like that).

In all honesty, if you want to get to the heart of the sad ongoing debate about the YF-23 versus the YF-22, it was the YF-22 more fit in with Boyd's ideas on what made a fighter a fighter. The YF-23 didn't have post stall capabilities, and its engines were so far apart that it affected its roll rates enough for the USAF to out weigh the YF-22s super maneuvering (along with meeting the LO and supercruise requirements) to the YF-23s higher cruise speeds and lower RCS/IR. Not too mention the 23 most likely was more heavy, and ie, had a lower t/w ratio.

I've read that the YF-23 actually had a higher thrust to weight ratio, lower wing loading, and could carry about twice as much fuel as an F-22A. Would be good to know how those numbers would've changed had the Black Widow gone into production.

I thought we spoke about how wing loading is not a valid means of comparing two different aircraft? An aircraft's wing loading does not tell you how much lift it's capable of producing. You must take into consideration wing reference area, lift coefficient, and weight, not just wing reference area and weight.