Well, from my experience, here's the difference in a nutshell:

You have to fly the newer schedules slower (on average) in order to get a decent chance of positioning and straight lines between manuevers, unless you fly 225 meters out.....

Here's one place the "widebody" shines the old missle planes. Rolls. Point rolls, slow rolls, etc, can be flown much slower without dragging that tail all the way to the ground to hold altitude. You have to fly the old planes much faster OR really nail the rudder to hold decent knife edge flight, which can be done, but it looks odd.

That does really mean fuse height and shape, not necessarily the width of the plane itself. The reason they are wider is really a function of looks as well as anything else. A 14" tall plane looks a little odd if it's only 5" wide.

Drag does come into play somewhat, but it's more of a liability than an asset. That's why I designed my plane to penetrate more. It sounded good in theory to me, and it works pretty darned good in practice.

Keep in mind guys that pattern plane design is a constant evolution. Or at least constant change. What I saw this year was some people really losing the handle on super large planes in high wind. There is a happy medium, at least that's my theory.

-M