> Always HANG your CG weight below your lift engines if at all possible
> guys.

All the early rocket designs went through this phase and gave up on it.
See a model of an early GIRD (Russian) rocket (1920's ro 30's) for an
example.

Everybody went away from this because structural weight is very expensive
in rocketry. The payload-on-top model gives better payload/structure
weight ratio. Also having important parts of the payload (like people)
hanging down near the exhaust plumes is a very bad idea for several
reasons. Heat and noise (noise that kills - 200dB+ probably) being just
two of them.

The stability of an unguided rocket in gravity is not achieved by putting
the traction center higher than the CG, but below it, afaik ;-).

> And why so many engines?? Why not a central lift engine,

Maybe they do not build engines with enough thrust for that or lack the
facilities to test them.

Peter

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