Well 'Boyd's version' of F-16 was smaller and did not have a radar, that is correct. Whether it would have remained so, if Boyd and Sprey had their way, is any body's guess. As electronics shrank in size, it would certainly have been possible to fit radar even in Boyd's version.
There is a relationship between radar beam and antenna size -- inverse.
In radar detection, the smaller the beam the better the target resolutions, and those resolutions are:
- Altitude
- Speed
- Heading
- Aspect angle
In that inverse relationship, the larger the antenna, the smaller the beam it can produce, and just in case you think I make this shit up...
RADAR BEAM CHARACTERISTICS - 14271_60
Beamwidth varies directly with wavelength and inversely with antenna size. Radar systems that produce relatively small beam widths generally provide greater target resolution.
Large beamwidths are good for volume search and large antenna sizes have this flexibility: That they can perform volume search as well as producing small beamwidths for precision target analysis.
There is another advantage with smaller and smaller beamwidths: resolution cell.
Definition: radar resolution cell
The volume of space that is occupied by a radar pulse and that is determined by the pulse duration and the horizontal and vertical beamwidths of the transmitting radar. Note: The radar cannot distinguish between two separate objects that lie within the same resolution cell.
Against small targets that flies close to each other, the smaller the beamwidth, the better for the radar to separate out each target in that cluster. When the 4 USAF Thunderbirds F-16s flies so close to each other in an airshow, they do appear as one target to most radar systems out there. Your eyes see four jets, the local airport see one.
The current F-16 radome size is just about the smallest it can be and still provide the pilot with reasonably acceptable radar capabilities. Any smaller and it will render the jet worthless as an air combatant.
Are you learning anything ?
But this is beside the point. The point Sprey and others raise is something else. That in aerial combat against an opponent worth its salt (not Saddam's airforce), the combat will eventually end in a dogfight.
A gun-only F-16 will lose against Saddam's pilots.
...its hydraulics use the onboard fuel as working fluid. That is the dumbest thing, I have ever heard in my life. I would not even drive a car that uses fuel for hydraulic fluid let alone flying a plane into combat.
I take it you speak from extensive personal experience in designing high performance combat aircrafts ?
I am going to leave that question open to see if you are capable of exercising critical thinking skills, if you have any in the first place. I want you, and others like you who are so eager to portray yourselves as 'experts' in military aviation, to think what happens when a jet is hit, either by cannon shells or a missile, how systems packaged on an aircraft, and why is it stupid to use fuel as hydraulic fluid.
By the way...Fuel was used by the SR-71 as coolant...
Physics Buzz: Betrayed by Heat: The SR-71 Blackbird
A special fuel that was stable at high temperatures was developed for the Blackbird. According to the SR-71 manual, the fuel was used both as energy for the engine and also as engine hydraulic fluid - fluid used to power certain engine components.
When the airplane was traveling supersonically, the fuel was also used as part of a heat sink. A heat sink is a device that uses a fluid to wick away heat from a solid object. The Blackbird's manual states that without that heat sinking capability, parts of the airplane and its engines would overheat at high Mach speeds.
We Americans are sure a stupid people. Let US know when your Iran produces anything better than the 1950s era technology the SR-71 came from.
