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Let's take the Sukhoi Su-30 as an example:

Sukhoi Su-30

The nose cone is clearly pointing a bit downwards with respect to the level of the engines and wings. Why is this? How can this kind of banana even fly properly?

Here's the profile an F/A-18 for comparison:

F/A-18

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    $\begingroup$ +1 for calling it a banana. $\endgroup$
    – mishaturnbull
    Commented Dec 10, 2018 at 17:17

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The nose cone position depends upon the mission profile of the aircraft. Su-30 is a multirole fighter for all-weather, air-to-air and air-to-surface deep interdiction missions, since its air-surface with deep interdiction it needs to have a view of the ground while targeting ground troops/equipments/artillery. This nose down config helps it to have that view. F-18/F-16/F-15 are air superiority aircrafts. Yes same cannot be said for F-18 but then F-18 has many variants, F-18D which has air-ground support is slightly elevated pilot view for better ground view. Same can be seen in Eurofighter Typhoon and A-10 Thunderbolt.

While Su-15, Su-24 and Mig-27 where interceptors and bombers, they have straight nose just like their companions from the west.

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  • $\begingroup$ Same principle was applied to Concorde nose, due to its long nose pilot wasn't able to see the runway. So they developed a way to lower its nose while taxi. This is beautifully demonstrated in this video (starts at 5:05 ) youtube.com/watch?v=2oiv4249sRU $\endgroup$
    – Huntkil
    Commented Dec 7, 2018 at 22:02
  • $\begingroup$ I would like to know how this affects aerodynamics. $\endgroup$
    – juzzlin
    Commented Dec 8, 2018 at 11:31
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    $\begingroup$ It makes SU-30 longitudinally unstable or we can say "relaxed stability". $\endgroup$
    – Huntkil
    Commented Dec 10, 2018 at 16:18
  • $\begingroup$ The F-18 is properly the F/A-18, with the A for Attack. Ground attack. It was dual role from its inception, and is not considered a pure air superiority fighter. (Consider the aircraft it replaced...) Also, you don’t strafe from straight and level flight, you dive when attacking the ground, so tilting the nose down to see what you’re attacking doesn’t make sense. $\endgroup$
    – Michael Hall
    Commented May 31, 2023 at 19:32

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