Page 15: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (September 2022)

Credit: White House Collection/White House Historical Association

Exactly the same sentiment, but in much more elegant language. I mean “Phantasmagoria;” you can look it up in the dictionary, but, most of all, I can hear you trying to pro- nounce it and failing.

The life of an engineer appears to be so hopeless, but then we have John Boyd. John Boyd developed the OODA loop.

It was developed by him in ? ghter plane combat training, and is now applied in other combat activities. It is incredibly simple, but, just like “Beam is Cheap,” once you dial into it, it becomes super powerful.

OODA stands for Observe, Orientate, Decide and Act, and then do it all over again right away.

So, this is what happens to a novice in the cockpit. He’d observe enemy ? ghters, and then will freeze in panic not knowing what to do until he gets shot down. (This weird pa- ralysis also tends to affect new engineers.)

Instead, John Boyd would train the novice to observe, to ? gure out where the problem was, to engage the option that is most effective under the circumstances, to take action and to see what happened after the action was taken, and start the loop all over again.

That makes sense, but what is really interesting is that it gets to be real fun when you can do the loop faster than the enemy, whether the enemy is a bunch of other ? ghter pilots, a bunch of pirates, or a sinking ship.

Once I became familiar with the concept, I realized it is central to ship dynamic design, such as design for proper maneuverability or salvage response, and one can even

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