What’s the white thing on the port outboard pylon?

ECM pod.

Tornado ADV was more an interceptor (that’s why the WSO was needed) than an air superiority fighter – designed to kill Su-24s and Tu-22s over the North Sea, not to counter MiGs over the Fulda Gap.
The Germans stucked to the F-4 because they needed its flexibility (which ADV lacks) as fighter-bomber.
The Italians shuld have bought it, but they chose to upgrade the F-104S (equally home-made). Anyway they had to lease 24 ADVs from the RAF in the 90’s.

Bottom line: Germany didn’t need it, Italy did.

Quote:
The tail of that bird is bothering me slightly. looks a little smudged.

That kind of blur is because that part of the image is no longer in the telephoto len’s depth of field.

Forget about the lense explanation, it’s obviously PS’d. NOT the FC-1, that’s genuine, but something in the background has been erased (almost all the upper left part of the picture is re-done).
Look at the nozzle, it’s sharp; if it had been a lense effect it would have been blured too, like the tail…

1330 F-16, 210 F-15E and 50 F-117 (but the latter don’t make a difference since 10 will go this year and the rest in 2008 to storage…)
About the others I don’t know exactly.

IRIAF 747 tankers use the boom system, whereas Su-24 has the probe-drogue system:rolleyes:

Only 2 Magics for the F-8.
SuEs carry 2 on the outboard pylons for self-protection. Technically it would be possible to hang 4 of them (2 on inboards), but that config. is never used.