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Does anyone else spend so much time making aircraft, that they never got good at huge rockets, moar boosters and in-orbit assembly? So that when you feel an urge to view the outer reaches of the Kerbol system, the easiest way is to make a plane that leaves bits of itself behind en-route. (Intentionally) https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=7003A8806D8A6B2C!727&authkey=!ALzHMCmQJPIc63Q&ithint=file%2ccraft This one's already lost a stage - the landing gear that it took off on, wasn't fast enough to F12 sorry. It'll be raining Rapiers, three of them at any rate. As we pass mach 6, we shed the outboard NERVs. Above 50km, there's no need for the extra control surfaces. Nor those empty wings. It leaves us an aft CG but since there's no real atmosphere we get away with it. In orbit. This stage has about 650 fuel left in it, enough to get us to Laythe I reckon - 5000dV? I couldn't be bothered to fly to Laythe today, but I did verify that the Laythe airbreathing stage works on Kerbin - it's actually kinda sporty. Unfortunately the rest of the plane fell onto and wrecked the space centre. After launching the cruise missile separating the airbreathing stage, the return stage was also given a quick once over. The landing gear of the Laythe stage have already gone by this point. It could probably use some more optimisation but it's a start, at any rate. For career mode games, something a little more prosaic - Or we could just build an utter monstrosity It's easier than you'd think, once you get your head around it. The trick is to stay symmetrical in two axes (lateral, vertical) unless you're a true genius. Tacking on stages to the back of your airplane is fine, just remember to add a wing section to each engine part so that the lift offsets the weight and shedding this item has no effect on your CG. And if your new stage needs more engines, use bicouplers. Don't underslung pods, because you won't be able to keep the nose down when the air gets thin. Those planes I linked, look asymmetric , are asymmetric, but don't act asymmetric because they got wings on them heavy bits. You underslung your motors you get off the boat. Never go full asymmetric.