Flying Camelot: The F-15, the F-16, and the Weaponization of Fighter Pilot Nostalgia

by Michael W. Hankins

Overview

Flying Camelot brings us back to the post-Vietnam era, when the US Air Force launched two new, state-of-the art fighter aircraft: the F-15 Eagle and the F-16 Fighting Falcon.

It was an era when debates about aircraft superiority went public—and these were not uncontested discussions. Michael W. Hankins delves deep into the fighter pilot culture that gave rise to both designs, showing how a small but vocal group of pilots, engineers, and analysts in the Department of Defense weaponized their own culture to affect technological development and larger political change.

The design and advancement of the F-15 and F-16 reflected this group's nostalgic desire to recapture the best of World War I air combat. Known as the "Fighter Mafia," and later growing into the media savvy political powerhouse "Reform Movement," it believed that American weapons systems were too complicated and expensive, and thus vulnerable. The group's leader was Colonel John Boyd, a contentious former fighter pilot heralded as a messianic figure by many in its ranks. He and his group advocated for a shift in focus from the multi-role interceptors the Air Force had designed in the early Cold War towards specialized air-to-air combat dogfighters. Their influence stretched beyond design and into larger politicized debates about US national security, debates that still resonate today.

A biography of fighter pilot culture and the nostalgia that drove decision-making, Flying Camelot deftly engages both popular culture and archives to animate the movement that shook the foundations of the Pentagon and Congress.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781501760655
Publisher:	Cornell University Press
Publication date:	12/15/2021
Series:	Battlegrounds: Cornell Studies in Military History
Pages:	280
Sales rank:	936,320
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.20(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Michael W. Hankins is the Curator of US Air Force History at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. Follow him on X @Hankenstien.

Table of Contents

Introduction
1. The Fighter Pilot with a Thousand Faces
2. You Can Tell a Fighter Pilot (But You Can't Tell Him Much)"
3. What We Mean When We Say "Fighter"
4. "The Right Fighter"
5. "The Lord's Work"
6. Writing Heresy
7. "Zealots of the Classic Variety"
8. Kicking Vietnam Syndrome
Conclusion

What People are Saying About This

Brian McAllister Linn

Michael W. Hankins weaves a vast literature into a coherent and entertaining narrative on fighter plane development, the cult surrounding fighter pilots, and the so-called military reform movement.

Tim Schultz

A fascinating look into the way fighter pilots shaped new machines to sustain old myths by styling themselves as knights of the air, enchanted with past glories. Michael W. Hankins expertly reveals how culture influences the technology of combat.

Roger D. Launius

Both exceptional and eloquent, Flying Camelot tells the story of the transformation of the air superiority mission, vis-à-vis strategic bombardment, during the Vietnam era.

Brian D. Laslie

Forget 'The Right Stuff,' this is the Real Stuff. Equal parts cultural, technological, societal, and military history, Flying Camelot is a brilliant and illuminating account of fighter pilot culture and the development of governmental weapons systems.

Editorial Reviews

In this lively, absorbing account, Hankins demonstrates the influence of a specific culture that celebrated the fighter pilot as a "knight of the air" who thrilled to aerial combat.

Foreign Affairs

Flying Camelot, he has written a superlative, accessible, and balanced study of the influence Boyd and his acolytes had on the US Air Force (hereafter "Air Force") and national defense establishment in the last quarter of the twentieth century.

Michigan War Studies Review

[Dr. Hankins] writes in an engaging and accessible way that makes some occasionally highly-technical discussions quite lucid and illuminating.

Sir Richard Williams Foundation