Why do the missiles on an F-16 point slightly down? I've been wondering this for quite a while:  Why do the missiles on the F-16 point down a little bit?



I went and did a little searching and found out that the F-16 isn't the only plane that has this feature, so I'm going assume it's not the F-16s frame specifically.  I also doubt it's tactical because all the weapons are pointing down, regardless of the weapons role in combat. In fact I saw a few photos where the bombs closest to the fuselage were pretty level with the ground (and bombs pretty much always go down, so...)

Does it have to do with aerodynamics, or perhaps ease of loading?  Why is the load-out on the F-16 mostly pointed slightly downwards?
If you take a look at the picture again, you'll see that the missiles are in fact lined up quite nicely with the nose of the plane. The missiles are not pointed down, they are pointed forward. The wings and engine (and the entire back two-thirds of the plane) are pointed up, which provides the lift to keep the plane in the air during normal flight. You can see pretty well the alignment in reference to the horizon in this picture (found by @jay-carr):



Just to cut off the potential comments about how planes generate lift, reference is here.