I've noticed that on combat aircraft the forward (nose-mounted) pitot tube is usually very long, on the order of half a meter to well over a meter on some aircraft. Why are they so long? Surely the body of the aircraft is not disturbing the air in front of the craft, neither during subsonic nor supersonic flight.
Example, from an AIDC F-CK-1:
Example, from a Mirage III:
Note that I couldn't find any good pictures of the Mirage in which the entire pitot tube actually fit in the photo!