Many years ago, large corporations published well written, well edited, and often lavishly produced magazines that showcased their products and, inter alia, demonstrated their enormous resources and competence.
In 1991, one of these, General Dynamics’ Code One, published a wide ranging interview with Harry Hillaker, the chief designer of the F-16. It is a tour de force. Hillaker was there at the very beginnings of the effort to develop a new fighter optimized for close-in air-to-air combat. At the time, the Air Force was deep into bringing the F-15 into production. As Hillaker describes it, the F-15 was a continuation of the standard fighter lineage: You want to go faster? Add another engine. You want to go farther? Make it bigger to carry more fuel. Being larger also meant it had more capacity to carry weapons and electronics, particularly the ability to employ radar-guided missiles, which could operate well beyond the visual rage of the pilot.
The result was an airplane that, while demonstrating significant air-to-air performance improvements over its predecessor, the McDonnell Douglas F-4, was correspondingly more expensive. Many at the time also felt it would be more difficult to maintain, particularly under wartime conditions. Incidentally, John Boyd was heavily involved in the F-X program of the late 1960s, which became the F-15.*
Hillaker recalls how a small group of pilots, analysts, and engineers — the “Fighter Mafia” — adopted a completely different philosophy: Employ advanced technologies, particularly fly-by-wire flight control systems and designed-in instability, to develop a fighter that was much smaller than the F-15 while optimized for the type of close-in dogfighting that characterized air battles during the Vietnam War. At first, this group consisted only of Hillaker, Pierre Sprey, and Boyd.
To see how this all came together to produce the F-16, read the article.
Biographical note: At the time, I was a staffer in the TACAIR shop of an obscure branch of the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Office of Program Analysis and Evaluation, the much subdued descendent of McNamara’s “whiz kids.” As the point of contact in our office for the Lightweight Fighter program, which included both the YF-16 and the Northrop YF-17, I probably met Harry Hillaker, although I truly don’t remember.
Lockheed Martin continued publishing Code One until 2016. They still maintain the archive and publish a newsletter, Vector Star.
*Robert Coram describes Boyd’s role in the F-X/F-15 in his bio, Boyd: The FighterPilot Who Changed the Art of War, chapter 15.
Slightly East of New 