The Fighter Mafia was a controversial group of U.S
Air Force officers and civilian defense analysts who, in the 1960s and 1970s, advocated for fighter design criteria in opposition to those of the design boards of the time
Their assertions included: * Contemporary Air Force generals established poor criteria for combat effectiveness that ignored historical combat data
* Design focus on high technology and planes that could go "higher, faster, and farther" increased costs and decreased effectiveness
The group's view was that cheaper designs would have been more effective
* The bureaucracy of the Air Force was corrupt, allegedly dishonestly testing weapons before buying them and deploying them in the field
* The focus of the USAF should have been on close air support and the use of combined arms to support maneuver warfare rather than interdiction bombing
* Multi-role and multi-mission capability plane designs were fundamentally compromised compared to specialized designs
* Beyond visual range combat was a fantasy
Christie's energy-maneuverability (E-M) theory in designing fighter aircraft
The E-M model enabled quantitative comparison of the performance of aircraft in terms of air combat maneuvering in the context of dogfighting
The Fighter Mafia influenced the specifications for the F-X and went on to independently develop specifications for the Light Weight Fighter (LWF)
The next generation of warplanes combined both maneuverability (which the group advocated) as well as large active radars and radar-guided missiles (which they opposed)
Their assertions included: * Contemporary Air Force generals established poor criteria for combat effectiveness that ignored historical combat data. * Design focus on high technology and planes that could go "higher, faster, and farther" increased costs and decreased effectiveness. The group's view was that cheaper designs would have been more effective. * The bureaucracy of the Air Force was corrupt, allegedly dishonestly testing weapons before buying them and deploying them in the field. * The focus of the USAF should have been on close air support and the use of combined arms to support maneuver warfare rather than interdiction bombing. * Multi-role and multi-mission capability plane designs were fundamentally compromised compared to specialized designs. * Beyond visual range combat was a fantasy. The Fighter Mafia also advocated the use of John Boyd and Thomas P. Christie's energy-maneuverability (E-M) theory in designing fighter aircraft. The E-M model enabled quantitative comparison of the performance of aircraft in terms of air combat maneuvering in the context of dogfighting. The Fighter Mafia influenced the specifications for the F-X and went on to independently develop specifications for the Light Weight Fighter (LWF). The next generation of warplanes combined both maneuverability (which the group advocated) as well as large active radars and radar-guided missiles (which they opposed). Aircraft in this generation included the F-14, F-15, F-16 and F/A-18.