That's my assumption Sid, AFAIK there's no way to disable the other aircraft view without using a mod of some description.
Like Colin, I also flew (albeit briefly) with a much reduced icon view and no other aircraft on the map and although it was certainly more challenging, it was by no means impossible to find targets so I'll stick with it for now.
While we're on the subject of levelling the playing field, should we also consider separate comms channels for red & blue