On Thu, 07 Aug 2003 10:48:51 -0500, Big John wrote:

Kevin

Note your Fighter Pilot's druthers.

With a side stick you can't fly with your knees while you do other
important things with ur hands.

Big John
Retired Fighter Pilot


On Thu, 07 Aug 2003 10:55:56 GMT, Kevin Horton
wrote:

On Thu, 07 Aug 2003 06:46:00 +0000, Tilt wrote:

We all really like the idea of a canard pusher design. 4 seats are
also desired. Details after that have not been discussed. But one
thing that popped up was the control stick position. I've noticed,
while surfing the net looking at Velocity's and Cozy's, that the stick
is a side mount. I would prefer a center mount stick and I know my
fighter friend would want the center stick.

You might want to wrangle a flight in a canard with a side stick before
you write off the concept. It does work reasonably well, at least on
the Gyroflug Speed Canard that I flew.

4 seat canards are not the sort of aircraft you do aerobatics in, so you
don't need the leverage that a long centre stick gives you.

I got lots of hours holding sticks between my knees too. I would prefer a
centre stick too. But a properly built and rigged canard should be able
to keep right side up once you've got it trimmed, I would have thought.
So you should be able to release the stick for short periods if you really
need both hands.

I'm not aware of any four place canards with centre sticks. I suspect it
would be a very large job to cobble a centre stick onto one of the four
place canard designs. You would need quite a few bell cranks, etc, and
the number of pivots could lead to excessive friction, if you weren't real
careful with the design and construction.

--
Kevin Horton RV-8 (finishing kit)
Ottawa, Canada
http://go.phpwebhosting.com/~khorton/rv8/