Ofuscor

In real life the delta wing should be better for high speed but I don´t think this is also true for KSP. Also, I think you can activate that third engine you had on you plane and when you meet the requirements just add an extra stage at the bottom and press space bar a couple of times to fulfill the contract. This was possible in earlier versions of the game I have not tried it in 1.0.X

You just have to build something with liquid fuel engines or solid rocket boosters. This one is able to reach at least 25k. It has only one use though. You can try to switch the booster for the tier 1 liquid fuel engines and a couple of liquid fuel containers, it may get a bit heavuer. If used right it will get you above 18k. Remember to limit the engines throttle so you don´t waste fuel fighting the atmosphere. http://i.imgur.com/Q7J5cyL.png

I understand that some people might want to unlock the full tech tree fast since they have already done that before. But I think that is the reason we have difficulty sliders, so you can customize your game to your liking. I do not believe this is the intended functionality of the strategies. If this was the case then all of the strategies would be gamebreaking as this one, and they are not. For example the convert reputation to funds is a joke and totally useless. If I were to follow the same reasoning then it should give me a crazy amount so I do not have to worry about funds ever again.