A larger-than-life fighter pilot and genius of aviation, engineering and military strategy, Boyd dared to challenge the intractable military bureaucracy and its outmoded practices. The single-minded determination developed in his youth carried him on to renown for his skill as a fighter pilot, for his passion as an instructor, his legendary appetite and lack of respect for his superiors. But this was just the start as he went on to transform the way military planes were designed, fighting the air force's entrenched ideas every step of the way. Boyd's breakthrough designs were crucial to the creation of the F-15 and 16, and he dedicated years to an innovative theory of conflict that eventually made him the most influential military theoretician since Sun Tzu. A magnet for bright young men dissatisfied with the impractically old-fashioned methods of the military, his circle of "acolytes" extended his influence through their headline-grabbing Reform Movement. By the time of Boyd's death his name had reached the furthest corners of the military establishment.
Coram paints a colourful portrait of this extremely unconventional man who locked horns with the most conventional of bureaucracies - and won.
- ISBN10 0316881465
- ISBN13 9780316881463
- Publish Date 1 November 2002
- Publish Status Active
- Out of Print 31 December 2009
- Publish Country US
- Imprint Little, Brown & Company
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 496
- Language English