Airship design

[Kimberly]

I want to drop a bunch of remote sensor pods onto Laythe, preferably about ten. The roleplaying reason is that I want to monitor the global weather patterns on Laythe. The thing is, I don't want them to fall over or land in water (so parachutes are basically out of the question) and ideally I'd like to deploy them all in one mission. Additionally, I want it to be possible to retrieve them/reposition them later. My first thought was to build an airship (with the HooliganLabs airship mod) and to lower them to the ground with KAS winches. With electric rotors (from Firespitter) and a heavy nuclear generator (udk_lethal_dose's station parts pack), I could travel all around Laythe. I seem to be awful at creating airships, though; they're all quite unbalanced and can barely steer. Can someone give me pointers, or an example design that would be good for such a mission?

The pods weigh just a bit over 2 tons each and look like this:

[Knas]

I don't use mods but just use parachutes. Make sure you're going almost directly down from a orbit so when you deploy the chutes your aircraft wont miss. If you don't wanna do this use a skycrane

[Cheebsta]

I have no idea on the ship... But what is that red thing? It is creeping me out because it looks like it's moving, haha.

[Kimberly]

I don't use mods but just use parachutes. Make sure you're going almost directly down from a orbit so when you deploy the chutes your aircraft wont miss. If you don't wanna do this use a skycrane

This would mean I'd need 10 separate tanks/engines to deploy the pods, though, and I'd need good aim to land them on same of the small islands on Laythe, plus I'd need to get the inclination just right so my orbit would pass over them...it's not the most convenient method.

I have no idea on the ship... But what is that red thing? It is creeping me out because it looks like it's moving, haha.

Those are aviation beacons. They can flash pretty brightly, and the roleplaying reason for having them is that they will allow location and retrieval of the pod by night.