fighter pilot - Air Marshal's Perspective

March 4, 2021September 27, 2021

Q & A Session Part 1: Talk at Technovanza of VJTI

The talk on “Modernisation and Technological advancement in IAF” at the annual Festival (Technovanza) of VJTI was followed by a Q & A session. The talk was for half an hour but the Q & A session went on for one hour. It was interesting to interact with the young college students. The students were very well informed, which was evident from the insightful and precise question asked by them. Overall it was an enjoyable experience.

Coming up: More of Q & A Session

February 28, 2021September 27, 2021

INTERESTING TIDBIT ABOUT: GENESIS OF BOYD’S OODA LOOP THEORY

John Richard Boyd (January 23, 1927 – March 9, 1997) was a United States Air Force fighter pilot and Pentagon consultant in the second half of the 20th century.

Boyd’s key concept was that of the decision cycle or OODA loop, the process by which an entity (either an individual or an organization) reacts to an event.

Genesis

In the era of 1950s air warfare, there was a peculiar anomaly. In dog fights between MiG-15s and F-86s, the plane that was expected to win (the MiG-15) constantly lost. To explore this, Colonel John Boyd (one of the best Air Force pilots in history) decided to research and get to the root of the situation. The question was, how could an inferior aircraft win so decisively?

Boyd’s Analysis: The reason, he concluded, was something that nobody had thought was particularly important. It was the fact that the F-86 Sabre had a hydraulic flight stick whereas the MiG-15 had a manual flight stick. Without hydraulics, it took slightly more physical energy to move the MiG-15 flight stick than it did the F-86 flight stick. Even though the MiG-15 would turn faster (or climb higher) once the stick was moved, the amount of energy it took to move the stick was greater for the MiG-15 pilot. With each iteration, the MiG-15 pilot grew a little more fatigued than the F-86 pilot. And as he got more fatigued, it took just a little bit longer to complete his OODA loop. The MiG-15 pilot didn’t lose because he got outfought. He lost because he got out-OODAed.

These insights lead us to Boyd’s Theory of OODA LOOP. In the aerial dogfight, the loop looks like this…

Observe the other aircraft

Orient yourself by analyzing the situation

Decide what to do

Act (steer or fire)

OODA Cycle Theory.

Boyd hypothesized that all intelligent organisms and organizations undergo a continuous cycle of interaction with their environment. Boyd breaks this cycle down to four interrelated and overlapping processes through which one cycles continuously:

Observation: the collection of data by means of the senses
Orientation: the analysis and synthesis of data to form one’s current mental perspective
Decision: the determination of a course of action based on one’s current mental perspective
Action: the physical playing-out of decisions

This decision cycle is thus known as the OODA loop. Boyd theorized that large organizations such as corporations, governments, or militaries possessed a hierarchy of OODA loops at tactical, grand-tactical (operational art), and strategic levels. It is relevant to any kind of competitive environment: business, politics, sports, even the struggle of organisms to survive.

References:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/research-reveals-four-steps-learn-faster-better-than-everyone

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Boyd_(military_strategist)

Pic Courtesy: https://online.visual-paradigm.com/knowledge/decision-analysis/what-is-ooda-loop/

February 25, 2021September 27, 2021

FIRST GENERATION FIGHTER AIRCRAFT

Categorization of fighter jets in generations is a classification system used around the world. The basic classification into five generations is widely accepted and recognized. Some accounts have subdivided the 4th generation into 4 and 4.5, or 4+ and 4++.

First generation subsonic jet fighters (mid 1940s to mid 1950s)

This category comprised of the earliest subsonic jet fighters that appeared during and after the last years of World War II.

They were similar in most respects to their piston-engine contemporaries, having generally straight wings and being of wood and/or light alloy construction.

The main feature of Gen 1 fighter was their advance in speed over its piston-engine predecessors. Introduction of the swept wing allowed transonic speeds to be reached, but controllability was often limited at such speeds. The jet engines did not have afterburners and the aircraft operated in the subsonic regime.

They had basic avionic They had no radars or self- protection countermeasures, and were armed with machine guns or cannons, as well as unguided bombs and rockets.