More air intakes is mostly good, but you also have to note that they increase drag quite a bit too, so it sometimes is a good idea to have a control button that allows you to toggle most of your intakes to an off position, So you can turn them off on the runway where the air is thick enough to only need one or two, and then turn the extras on when the air gets thinner and yer air intake is getting low.
I often go up as quickly as my plane can take me after liftoff until about 10000 meters or so, and then reduce my angle until I'm gaining only about 10 meters of altitude every second or so. This keeps the speed steadily increasing as well as your altitude, go up too fast and your engines run out of air because yer not going fast enough to make up for the thinner air, too slow and yer using up fuel. (this method may actually be a bit on the slow side, but it got me into space more often than not)
Depending on your design, up this high you may have to keep your nose up quite a bit higher than your direction of movement, haven't really looked up why, but I figure it's because the thinner air reduces how much lift yer getting from your wings, and yer engines have to keep you up more directly.
As the air gets thinner and thinner there's less drag keeping you from accelerating, and you should eventually reach a speed of about 1000m a second or so. When you hit that it's almost time to turn on the rockets, try to eek any more speed you possibly can with the air breathing engines. Then right when you think they are about to cut out, kill the jets, toggle all the air intakes off, kick on the rockets, and pull up for space. Once yer AP is out of atmosphere, add another 1000m a second to your orbital speed and you should be in orbit.
EDIT: Derp these are in m/sec not km/sec
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Topic: Kerbal Space Program: Now Hiring Optimistic Astronauts for Dangerous Munission (Read 1448650 times)