On 18 Jan 2004 11:57:22 -0700, (Mark James Boyd)
wrote:

Bill Daniels wrote:
Denis, you should read up on the French designer Charles Fauvell and his
flying wings. They flew pretty well although I think Jim Marske's designs
are showing higher performance.

Tailless designs fly quite well and the performance really doesn't suffer.
They would be perfect for small jet engine self launchers.

Bill Daniels

There are some obvious reasons not to use a canard (towrope tangling,
landout damage, creates turbulence before the wing) but this
seems an option as well... I've only flown one canard aircraft,
(and never a flying wing) so I may delve into this more...

The other reason is that, regardless of layout, the forward flying
surface always operates at a higher AOA in a stable trim, and this
usually results in the rear plane flying at a lower than optimal AOA.
As a canard has most of its surface in the rear plane its difficult to
get good glide performance under these conditions - certainly this has
tended to be the case in the model world.

--
martin@ : Martin Gregorie
gregorie : Harlow, UK
demon :
co : Zappa fan & glider pilot
uk :