Ideas for temp scans on the other side of Kerbin?

[Soda Popinski]

After taking a few contracts to do temp scans, and finding the locations fairly close to KSC, I took a set that turned out to be on the opposite side of the planet. I didn't have the patience to manually fly there in a plane.

My idea was to slap my standard jet plane on top of a rocket, and fly suborbital to the location, and fly around to get my temps and land for the surface temp. Seemed more Kerbal.

Apparently, putting something with a lot of drag from wings on the top of a rocket is a very bad idea.

I eventually attached 4 liquid rocket boosters surrounding my plane, and that worked after a lot of trial and error..

What are some of the other strategies you folks have used?

[Mister Dilsby]

That's why I never accept those contracts, it's just too much trouble to do in-atmosphere on a 1g world, and not much reward. I much prefer to do surveys for cash on Minmus, where I can hop around in a rover with an ion engine all day long.

But your way sounds like one of the easier ways to do it. If I HAD to take a multiple location survey contract on the other side of Kerbin, I think I would put a tiny plane with rover wheels into a big-S fairing and send the whole thing over the pole like an ICBM. Re-enter, eject the fairing right before it explodes, decouple the plane and fly around. Land and drive to the surface site.