"Morgans" wrote
I figured on a split tail, all along. Need more tail for stability, anyway,
for when orbit 1 is piggyback, plus when slingshot starts, we want plenty of
positive yaw margin, as the line starts jerking the tow plane all over the
sky. Spins suck, and plenty of rudder will help to pick up that low wing.

That's the beauty, though. We can slap bigger engines on, and chop tail off
and make separate tails, cause the whole thing is going to be
EXPERIMENTAL!!! All we gotta do is convince the FAA that the thing is
airworthy, then go play.

Can we sacrifice a little weight on the tow, and put a section of the roof
with explosive chord, and some ejection seats? I think I might want to
leave with my jumpseat, if things head the wrong way! g

No.

I threw your jumpseat out to get the weight down to 400K! You're now
sitting on the floor strapped down with some lightweight plastic
Rosary beads, freezing to death since we stripped out all the
insulation and heating ducts. An ejection seat wouldn't help you
anyway since you couldn't pull the handles up with your frozen hands.
Looks like you'll have to stick with the PIC (and he always goes down
with the ship!) g

Besides, I kinda get a warm fuzzy having the designers ride along with
me. Years ago, the USAF was experiencing a bad rash of KC-135
accidents attributable to sloppy maintenance. The Wing Commander's
answer to this was to require the crew chief signing off the work to
ride in the aircraft for at least two legs. The maintenance problems
immediately disappeared!

pac "ride em on in to the ground" plyer