Piggy Back Payloads

[ShmackedSloth]

I’ve been messing around with trying to piggy back satellites to orbit with a mk2 SSTO. (Think how the SR-71 carried the drone, except the plane gets to orbit before launching the payload) But it seems putting even a small mk1 size space craft on the back causes some ridiculous drag. I built the launcher plane first and it blasts through 440 m/s without breaking a sweat. But with the mk1 craft piggy backed on, it struggles to hit 300 m/s. I know cargo bays have been thought to be an issue but I have none on either craft. 

[Chris_The_Crafter]

Part of the problem is that mk2 craft are really draggy in general, because mk2 tanks have the same fuel capacity or less than 1.25m tanks of the same length, but have much more surface area and volume and therefore behave very draggy themselves. In ksp1, they also generated drag from both their size/shape and their lifting surface, I don't know if the devs have changed that for ksp2 yet, but bottom line, mk2 stuff severely underperforms in ksp2 at the time I'm writing this. And with the new cylindrical cargo bays in all sizes, mk2 stuff now has direct competition from 2.5m planes, which have about 4x the fuel relative to their length and can be made much simpler. Mk2 planes are just for the cool factor at the moment, and best avoided for functionality right now,  but now that they have something to compete with, hopefully the devs will give the mk2 parts the fixes they never got in KSP1, (mainly doubling the dry mass, fuel, and lifting surface and fixing the drag). and if it's a mk1 spacecraft you want to launch, you could try stuffing it into a mk2 cargo bay if you really want to keep the mk2 launch vehicle.