Planes, Space planes....

[HedgeKnight]

Hi Pilots,

Looking for advice on making high altitude, long distance planes. Ultimatley I want to build a something that can drop a rover on kerbin.

this is my current best, try to snag some temp info...

https://www.dropbox.com/s/qz3dcbtw5lm0etv/space plane design.PNG?dl=0
thx all!

j

[Vanamonde]

Howdy. 

More engines is not necessarily better. If you remove a couple of those you'll still have most of the speed but less drag and longer range. I'd suggest removing the 2 on the wings, and then moving their tanks into the main fuselage to reduce drag. If I recall correctly, the pointy engine intakes also work better at higher speeds. 

This will make the plane longer and you'll need to adjust the wings to the new center of mass, and likely need to add some canards to the front or tail planes to the back for better attitude control. 

Good luck with it.  

[HedgeKnight]

How do you get over 20k with a plane?

[Vanamonde]

Give it more lift, which is greater wing area. However, if you're trying to maximize range I believe going that high is counter-productive. My longest ranged plane cruised on Whiplash engines at about 13,000m.