You highly, highly underestimate F-16 just on the basis of the time of its initial production. The F-16 has undergone immense changes since that time, it is a very much capable aircraft. And the flankers don't have unmatched manoeuvrability, the F-16 was made for Dogfighting, the SU-30MKI was not, although thrust vectoring helps, the F-16 still will dominate the dogfight.
And even for BVR engagements, like I said, F-16 isn't the aircraft of 80s, it is just as capable as the SU-30MKI, it also has the ability to launch such missiles and can have a high range, it comes down to the mods used for the plane, as in the radars and stuff.
You go and tell any fighter enthusiast that F-16 is obsolete and stand zero chance against the likes of flankers, rafales and even mig 29's, and they will hit you right across you face with a hard slap.
The witness to the competitiveness of F-16s is the USAF itself, the Israeli Air Force, and the Greece Air Force.
The USAF to this date, uses F-16s, although phased out its procurement, as it moves onto the fifth generation fighters, the F-16 are still considered really valuable, being used highly in Middle East and Afghanistan.
The Israeli Air Force, for virtually all its known air-based operations and raids, used the F-16, there were several right ups on this, with the Russians even getting mad at Israel at one point.
The Greece Air Force has excelled with the F-16s in their KDR ratios, even scoring really well against F-35's in NATO exercises, they are renowned for their air force due to their good performance in NATO exercises.
You really showed your knowledge regarding Aircrafts by bringing up their initial production time into your argument, it's completely invalid in this case. Turkey, USAF, Greece, Israel, Pakistan, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, and many more, aren't retards to dump a whole lot of their budgets for fleets of F-16, its success and upgradation, followed by competitiveness why its still being developed further; check latest procurement by Taiwan.
