I'd need to read more, but I don't doubt that the four in-service aircraft are comparable. The design I was referring to was that of the YF-16, the prototype plane Boyd developed in secret. It was so maneuverable that it enabled a completely new type of combat tactic, called in the book I read the 'buttonhook turn'. When the Air Force was done with it, though, it lost all the aerodynamic characteristics that made it special.

It's very easy to over state what Boyd did. As in, what he did in reality was so fantastic and unbelievable that it's very easy to attribute additional not fully truthful aspects to him.

Unfortunately, can't really talk about the YF-16's combat potential as a dog fighter all that much. But what I can say is that if you apply Boyd's earlier work (E-M theory and E-M charts) to the the YF-16, then its very likely that you -can- compare the various airplanes. While it's certainly true that the YF-16 could perform the buttonhook turn to significant advantage in a wide variety of situations (the buttonhook turn is used when being pursued. By initiating a ridiculous tight turn, you could dump enough velocity to cause the opponent to overshoot, and then MOST importantly, the YF-16 had the thrust-weight ratio required to rapidly regain the energy it had just lost and allow it to reengage), it's quite likely that either the MiG-29 or Su-27 could have beat it in other regimes. For example, look at how the F-4 (a terrible dog fighter) was able to find advantageous engagements against generally aerodynamically superior MiGs during Vietnam (aided by Boyd's E-M work).

It should also be pointed out that amongst the things that the Air Force forced onto the F-16 was a much better radar. Nearly all the major changes made to the production aircraft degraded its talents as a dogfighter (as you point out) while vastly increasing its flexibility and its ability to engage at long-range - decisions which in retrospect were massively beneficial. The biggest thing to ding the USAF with is that they did not sufficiently increase wing area to compensate for the mass increase. In other words, Boyd's vision of where air combat was heading wasn't really spot on.

Also, credit should go to where it belongs. Boyd did not design the YF-16 by himself. The rest of the "Fighter Mafia" deserve just as much credit, as well as the designers at General Dynamics.

Also vastly increasing the cost of the machine, and decreasing its range. Boyd's vision was of huge numbers of cheap lightweight fighters dominating the skies. They could shoot down anything, evade any threat. Combine them with the unmatched pilot instructor training offered at the FWS and the Air Force would be a truly awesome beast.

Other roles such as CAS could be handled by other planes like the A-10. Boyd's critical insight was that you don't want much flexibility in an aircraft. Make it supremely effective, and it would find a versatility on its own. Just as the superior training of the F-4 pilots (instructed by Boyd himself and his peers) allowed them to be effective despite inferior hardware. A master with an old, rusty sword will beat a novice with Excalibur every time. But give him a gun and he's got a fighting chance.

> In other words, Boyd's vision of where air combat was heading wasn't really spot on.

I would say that air combat could have evolved the way Boyd had envisioned it, but didn't because he was marginalized. Evolution doesn't just happen, someone or something makes it happen. And then the results are looked at as inevitable, when they really aren't. Boyd was probably ahead of his time when it comes to combined arms strategy.

Eventually the Russians or someone else will put his vision into action and mop the floor with their adversaries, proving him right. After all, a good radar and long range capabilities are no good if you can't even keep your bird in the air long enough to put them to work.