Is achievingorbit that easy?

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by jacobmuller

Is this part of Spaceships wrong or merely oversimplified?

It's partially both. The maximum speed formula is flat wrong, since it's invariant in vehicle size (due to the square/cube law, larger vehicles should be faster) and air pressure (the lower the air pressure, the faster a vehicle with a non-airbreathing engine can go), the comment about wings is an oversimplification (wings would let you get into orbit with somewhat below local surface gravity, but you're not getting into orbit with 0.01G thrust, wings or no wings).