Years ago, a college student wrote a program to optimize the canard size. The final result was that the canard should be five times larger than the wing.....
Ron "Think About It" Wanttaja
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Any perceived advantage is offset by not one but several disadvantages. One designer seemed to have worked the pro/con formula out to perfection but I notice the industry didn't follow which they would have had there been any real advantage to a canard configuration. In fact, there would have be a very rapid shift to canard airplanes had there been a worthwhile improvement in efficiency.
check this out............ http://www.marskeaircraft.com/
Ron - are you thinking of a blended wing ? http://www.marskeaircraft.com/
He doesn't have that either.
Bill - I found one of the articles from 1963 but couldn't find anything else. Not to divert the thread but it is interesting given the level of effort put into designing and building the plane that he would have has such a misunderstanding of it's handling characteristics, doesn't it?
Well, test pilots can't think of everything. That's why they call them test pilots.
I was a test pilot of my own design. It pitched up unexpectedly to 12 feet on a high speed test run. I had no intention of flight but it caught me unexpectedly. It was tail heavy and I was planning to add more nose weight the next day before the first flight.
@Bill - hope i didn't imply anything derogatory about the designer/pilot by the way. But you're correct...unexpected events can happen to the best of us.
Thank you to all members who have offered valuable advice and suggestions. I have incorporated all the ideas into the revised design.