I experienced what Boyd calls, “coming unglued” one time in my flying career. When the rudder would not work on the Ultraflight Challenger II, I realized I would not get the wing up before contact with the ground. I panicked. I don't even remember the crash. This was very unsettling and, for me, almost deadly.

Boyd emphasized Orientation in the “Boyd Cycle” of Observe, Orient, Decide, Act because it is the glue that holds us together and allows recognition of the novelty that permits rapid transitions.

According to Boyd, Orientation involves our culture, background, beliefs, and morality. Practice, repetition, iterations, etc. have a lot to do with what we believe will work, but when what is happening out there does not fit with what we believe should happen, given our control input, we need to accept the novel observations and continue flying. Only when we panic does a small airplane have any real chance to kill us.

All of us old guys have observed, at least once, a small training airplane take off, pitch up too soon to a high pitch attitude, leave ground effect too early, go behind the power curve, and mush toward an obstacle. At this point somebody in the airplane, student or instructor, needs to have the background and belief system that will allow new observation to trigger a decision that a pitch down toward the obstacle is necessary to gain enough kinetic energy of pressure airspeed to climb just over the obstacle.

It is unfortunate, in accident analysis, that pilots are seldom praised for flying all the way to the crash, after making the mistakes leading to the need to crash well. Crashing well is the decision made after observing the need and with the orientation to accept this novel observation. Some have the orientation to accomplish this, some don't. We instructors should have the moral courage to help our students develop the effective orientation that makes rapid transitions possible.

Like Boyd says, new ideas, techniques, or discoveries cannot come out of a closed system. If we are simply taught top down, do it this way because it is the sanctioned way, techniques, training will not get any better and errors will be repeated and there will be no chance for the fast transitions that win battles and save lives.

Yes, I have been reading about John Boyd again. The new one is “Mind War.”

Correction: The book was "The Mind of War" by Grant T. Hammond.