Ralph Savelsberg wrote:

Guy Alcala wrote:

snip

Some years back, a friend of mine asked a pilot from either VX-4 or 5
(before they amalgamated as VX-9) which a/c he'd rather have in a phone
booth fight. The pilot said an F-14. My friend thought the pilot had
misunderstood him, so clarified the question. thepilot gave thesame
answer, and explained why. He said that nothing would beat the F-18 if
both a/c were clean wing, but that when you put the normal pylons on both
a/c it was a different matter. Of course, this referred to an early
F-18A/C model with the -400 engines, so the -402s and FCS software
improvements may have altered the odds, but the F-18's wing pylons are very
draggy. ISTR that the Swiss and maybe the Finns were interested in
developing a pure AAM pylon that would be much smaller and less draggy than
the current pylons, but I don't know if that ever went forward.

Guy


Those have been developed and are in service with the Swiss AF. Such a pylon loaded with an AMRAAM can be seen in the picture to which I provided the link below:

http://www.raf.mod.uk/news/images/nomad0403.jpg
I don't know whether the Finnish AF uses them as well, but it does seem likely.

Thanks for the picture. Quite a difference in size and (presumably) drag. One question -- does that look like the stock nose tow bar on the NLG?

Guy