A/C top speeds are illusory ... sometimes I think they're based more on what
comes from marketing than engineering. The F-14 was attributed with 2.34
(it attained 2.41 ONCE in flight test and was artificially limited to 1.88
in the fleet ... though it got there easily enough). The F-18 has a 1.8
claim ... I know NO ONE who's seen close to that (so maybe once in flight
test?).


Sometimes I wonder if the marketing guys just go something like "well
it's got a thrust to weight of X, it's got them there fixed intakes so
it's automatically less than two, and it's not quite as streamlined as
an F-16, let's slap '1.8' on it and call it good".

Any 4th generation aircraft with fixed intakes is automatically
assigned 2 or less and if it's got variable intakes they'll give it a
2.2 or a 2.35. Those seem to be the magic criteria but I doubt
they're based on anything but numbers pulled out of somebody's
backside.