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A fairly simple question here- I was looking at info on the Scaled Composites Stratolaunch (which work has continued steadily on through the present despite the lack of many news releases) and wondering -why are its wings straight? https://goo.gl/images/rwK0St https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scaled_Composites_Stratolaunch Simply sweeping the wings a bit beyond the twin fuselages and engine pods should reduce their drag in high-subsonic/transonic flight (the engines are cannabilized from 747's, so it's a good bet the Stratolaunch Model 351 is also designed to fly at around Mach 0.86) provided they are held to the same wing-area and wingspan to maintain the same aspect-ratio... (increasing wing-sweep doesn't *necessarily* increase wing area, only if you fail to reduce front-to-back wing width to maintain the same total wing-area. If wingspan and wing area are held constant, aspect ratio necessarily remains the same.) What I am wondering here is- why they don't do something similar to a raked-wingtip concept, where sweep-angle increases towards the ends of the wing- in this case only once you get beyond the engine-pods? Regards, Northstar
