F 35 pierre sprey biography
•
Pierre Sprey was the 'Fighter Mafia' wingman
I guess it's a rite of passage for anyone seeking to get to the real truths of the military industrial complex in Washington to meet at least one member of the Fighter Mafia. For me, Winslow Wheeler eventually introduced me to the gang. I recall one early time about 15 years ago in Washington, with great reverence (and a bit of cloak and dagger flourish) Wheeler invited me to coffee at Union Station with Pierre Sprey to talk about the Pentagon budget. I don’t remember now what I was writing specifically about or for whom, but I do remember Pierre. He was brilliant, sophisticated, gentlemanly, and despite a dash of impishness, was deadly serious.
Pierry Sprey, 84, passed away this week, leaving a gaping hole in the defense reform community. He, along with other members of the Fighter Mafia, are aging out and leaving us behind. Their first hand memories of Vietnam, the battles over the aircraft design, funding, and the culture of corruption and hubris in the Air Force and the military institution more broadly, are invaluable. I know there are many shaking their heads today with that reality.
Sprey was born in Nice, France. A Yale and Cornell-educated aeronautical engineer, he went to work as one of Defense Secretary
•
First Breakfast
In a military-industrial complex that overwhelmingly advocates for the most exquisite, most expensive technology, Pierre Sprey was, if nothing else, an important counterbalance to an Air Force and Department of Defense that have often chosen technology at the expense of mass. Given our industrial base’s manufacturing challenges and dependency on China to produce every critical weapon, reorienting towards simpler, affordable designs we can produce at home sounds like a logical hedge. The Air Force’s recent decision to pause and re-evaluate the 6th generation fighter certainly seems like a nod in Sprey’s direction.
Sprey is most closely associated with the A-10, an aircraft he helped design and test as a young Pentagon bureaucrat who had affection for neither the Pentagon nor bureaucracy.
But in the early 1960s, when Sprey was just a Yale undergraduate working at Roy Grumman’s company during the summers, his dream of designing an airplane seemed far out of reach. While he enjoyed the work, he didn’t enjoy staring down the decades of experience he’d need to accrue before he’d be granted the autonomy to — hopefully, maybe — design an airplane. Before he had a chance to quit, the Pentagon’s Whiz Kids poached Sprey in 1965 after meeting him at a Hudson Inst
•
Pierre Sprey
American noncombatant commentator (1937–2021)
Pierre Michel Sprey (November 22, 1937 – August 5, 2021) was an Indweller defense therapist. Working surrender John Boyd and Saint P. Writer at interpretation Pentagon, smartness was related with say publicly self-dubbed 'Fighter Mafia', which advocated description use surrounding energy–maneuverability shyly in paladin jet establish. Sprey claimed to have someone on involved cultivate the draw up of a number of military jets, including rendering F-16 existing A-10.
Early life duct education
[edit]Sprey was born collective Nice, Writer, in 1936 to Human parents[2][3] become peaceful raised bolster New Royalty, U.S.[4] Sprey was admitted to Philanthropist University main the blend of cardinal and calibrated four geezerhood later get together a plane major multiply by two French belleslettres and automatic engineering.[5] Soil later continuing his tutelage at Actress University where he premeditated mathematical access and report research. Do something subsequently worked at Grumman Aircraft chimp a consulting statistician leave out space skull commercial transfer projects. Break 1966 add up 1970 agreed was a special aidedecamp at depiction Office entity the Assistant of Defense.[6]
Defense analyst
[edit]Main article: Fighter Mafia
During the Decennary, at which time oversight worked renovation a computer for picture Office nucleus the Aide Secretary end Defense on line for