To Beat COVID-19, Think Like a Fighter Pilot
Colonel John Boyd was a legendary fighter pilot with the United States Air Force. As an instructor at the prestigious Fighter Weapons School, he became known as “40-second Boyd” because of a standing bet he offered that, starting from a disadvantage, he could maneuver to get on any opponent’s tail within 40 seconds, a bet he never lost. During the Korean War, he commanded a fighter squadron of F-86 Sabres that dominated the skies over Korea and achieved a kill ratio over 10:1 against the superior MiG-15s flown by the enemy.
Even Boyd was surprised at their success. After the war, he spent years going over the data and ultimately decided it was situational awareness, specifically the greater visibility offered by the canopy on the F-86 Sabrejet vs. that of the MiG fighter, that had made his pilots so deadly. Generalizing from the presence of an enemy plane, themselves to locate the adversary, whether to go on the offensive or try to evade the threat, and then on that decision. Boyd’s main strategic argument was that a faster, more maneuverable plane flown by pilots with quick reactions can overcome more powerful adversaries by “getting inside” their loop, changing the facts of the engagement so quickly the opponent can’t keep up. Boyd’s theories were integral to the development of the highly successful F-16 and F/A-18 aircraft, and the OODA loop model has since spread to other strategic realms like sports, politics, litigation, business, and crisis management.
