Somehow I'm wondering if the Skylon plane could actually fly, at lower airspeeds; It seems to be lacking a horizontal stabilizer.
I know some planes don't have them, delta-wing like planes like the shuttle or concorde. But the Skylon seems to have relatively small main wings, and not at the back of the fuselage. Noticed it has tiny horizontal stabilizers at the front (canard), but would it actually work at low airspeeds for this wing configuration? Normally with canard stabilizers (at the nose), the main wings are placed more to the back end of the fuselage. Watching the animation, the design just 'feels' wrong or very unstable in reality.
Anyway, they must have calculated/tested/proved that this design is possible, otherwise ESA won't give the $$$
regards,
mcduck