Ballast isn't necessarily a bad thing...many commercial airlineers have ballast or provisions for ballast. I have finally sold the air force on installing 1000 lbs of ballast on the AWACS. Saves carrying 5000 lbs of dead weight in the form of unburnable fuel.
https://sites.google.com/site/mykr2stretch/ https://sites.google.com/site/mykr2stretch/parts-for-sale
