Charles Bair

CANARDS ARE FUN! You ask, "what is a canard?" A canard configured airplane is one which has a pitch control surface in front of its wing. The Wright brothers tried it, and it worked! Maybe you ought to try it. You may like it. When French aviation experimenters heard that the Wright brothers had succeeded in flying a machine with its elevators in front of its wings, they proclaimed that it was a "canard," a French word for a tall tale. The French believed it was a hoax because such a flying machine would have to be unstable in flight, and indeed the Wright brothers' 1903 airplane was unstable. Canard configured airplanes need not necessarily be unstable, if the correct CG location is used.