Large heavy weight fighters vs light weight fighters

smaller amounts of heavy weight fighters vs larger amounts of smaller fighters

ex. 3 F-15 vs 5 F-16, or 3 F-14 vs 5 F-18, 3 Su-30 vs 5 MiG-29, etc..

Which do you prefer for an air force?

The general arguement is, the heavier fighters can take on the smaller fighters, simply because it usually has much longer range, more fuel to spend during combat, higher endurance, usually carries as much/if not more missles, etc it’s downfall however is the larger RCS, larger unit price, and larger operating costs..
However in regards to RCS, a fully laden Gripen or MiG-29 with two fuel tanks and 4 AAMs is probably as visible on radar as a larger F-15 or Su-30 (and in the latter’s case, the unit price is about the same as the Gripen), thus nullifies the smaller aircraft’s advantage until it drops some of it’s load.

one can apply this to the Brazilian situation..should they opt for smaller number of Flankers, or more numbers of the smaller Gripen?

fake, but nice japanese Su-30

the world’s current air dominance fighter before the F-22 starts coming in..

vs the smaller..