In an interview with anna.aero at this year’s ACI Europe annual assembly in Milan, Turkish Airlines president and CEO Dr Kotil expressed his desire to make Turkish Airlines “the largest airline on Earth”.

Dr Kotil explains that the airline will increase its passenger volumes primarily from transfer. Unlike the airlines’ mid-east competitors, such as Emirates and Qatar Airways, Turkish Airlines will focus on providing European feed with smaller 737-800 aircraft to serve more destinations. Besides, it will be offering 45″ seat pitch, rather than the typical 35″ European business class product.

Could Turkish Airlines’ growth strategy work, and make it the world’s largest airline, or it is just an unrealistic dream?

Never fly THY.
Turkish Airlines is a notoriously crappy airline, crashing frequently, having bad reputation when it comes to pilot education (crew resource management is a catastrophe, English proficiency poor, airmanship not the best either).
If there is one airline that really shouldn’t grow, it is THY.

If a nation has a limited number of F-35, the enemy will most likely use different means of taking the ability to fight a war. Question is if a higher number of aircraft isn’t more useful than few highly advanced copies. Even a single Lionel Messi cannot win against a team of average soccer players, although Messi earns more than entire teams in the second legeau of most soccer nations (i.e. Germany, UK).

Here is the same story, more credible source:
http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2010/07/02/343992/us-company-partners-with-antonov-in-surprise-kc-x-bid.html

But who in the world would take such an aircraft? If the A330 is already considered too large by some, how should an aircraft that can carry an empty B767 (by weight) can compete?

Translating this, the Fulcrum suffers from high bleed manoeuvers more than the Eagle (it loses more speed more quickly during sustained manoeuvres, so whilst it has better low speed handling it has to continually break and rejoin more quickly, it gets there faster and that’s not a good thing).
The Flanker is the complete reverse of this and suffers less overall than the Eagle in the aforementioned conditions, from what I’ve read.

The Eagle has a better turn at low altitude, the Fulcrum has a better one at higher altitudes.
The Fulcrum-Eagle comparison is probably a lot like the FM-2 versus Zeke 52. At higher altitudes the Eagle would want to use boom and zoom for CWC, at low altitude it’s actually more than up to the task. This would only be further exaggerated by the Viper which has even better low altitude qualities than the Eagle.

Flanker is a different story, and a FBW Fulcrum would be too.

I seriously doubt that. The Fulcrum and Flanker have leading edge extensions, which allow for more efficient lift generation at high AOA. They don’t help much at low to medium (medium = 10°) AOA. Consequently, at higher (air)speeds the Fulcrum and Flanker are in one leageau with the F-15, but at lower speeds they will demonstrate superior sustained turn rates.

The aerodynamic design of the F-15 is not so advanced. The F-16 is much more comparable to the MiG-29. The F-15 lacks computer-controlled leading edge devices, which greatly reduce drag at high speed maneuvers (maybe Alfakilo likes to write about the maneuver flaps of the F-104G).

Apart from thrust (which will develop similar with altitude and Mach number for most designs considered here) and weight, aerodynamics influence the STR most. For ITR the maximum lift or structural limit are decisive, while for STR the ability to generate lift at acceptable drag levels is decisive. The F-15 isn’t really the best 4th generation fighter here. MDD solved all maneuvering requirements with wing area and thrust/weight ratio.

From my limited perspective, I would chose an F-16A over all designs (for maneuvering, not taking missile technology into account). It is the smallest, offers best view and has the best control system design.

That’s the second time you have used the “Hellcat” analogy.

I think you meant to use the F4F Wildcat to make your point.

Why? The F6F was no match for the Zero in low speed turning. It was superior in many other categories (especially: it could take some bullets without becoming a flaming wreckage), and later in the war, most pilots of the Zero were mostly inexperienced novices.

The Hellcat wasn’t that superior, but the pilots flying it were.

The AA-11s in the 1980s, was the longest range short range weapon with a range of 31km of range, basicly the Su-27 would had faced the F-15 at longer ranges than the F-15 would.

“Longest range short range weapon” … nice to know. But locking a target with IR over such distance is difficult, and firing a missile at maximum range a dubious decision.

The biggest problem of the Suchoi 27 in the 80ies (and the Suchoi wasn’t operational before 1986) was the lack of AWACS support.

The problem of SARH-guided AAMs is that it changes the tactics. If the opponent does have them, you will use different tactics. I think having them is an advantage, even if no direct kills result from them.

The problem is the associated weight. As soon as a maneuvering fight evolves, the BVR-equipment is of no use any more.

Today thee is no need for SARH any more, and an AMRAAM can be guided by basically any radar. Living through an air engagement these days isn’t easy, the quest for stealth by the USAF is not unreasonable.