I am not actually aware of how the Whale handles, actually. I tried one out back in April, but not in combat situation or even in asteroids. I brought the Whale into the discussion b/c this was going to be kinda like a Whale mk 2. I like the Whales design, one of the reasons I wanted to make this. I don't want to change a perfectly fine ship.
One thing I definately want to avoid is making a transport that will replace the Ltrain or make it ridicullously easy to get a cap ship w/ it. I can tell that is a known concern for large transports.
Anyways, a mock-up model should be on display sometime today. I'll try to get some existing models next to it for comparison. I may not be able to due to CMP importer limitations, but I'll try.