I'm seeing this may be the case. We arn't getting real serious yet, but I
want to start researching this info now. My friends and I would certainly
prefer a stick between the knees. My fighter friend has flown this way since
the start of his flying career. I myself like that arrangment too. Maybe we
need to look at other homebuilt designs. We would like the craft to have
some light aerobatics abilities. Nothing real heavy...none of us wants to go
off and join the Air Show.

I did find a web site of a dude building an SQ-2000 canard pusher. His
cockpit was set up with 2 yokes. This leads me to think it wouldn't be hard
to set up a center (between the knees) stick.

Any SQ-2000 owners out there want to enlighten me?

Cheers,
Lyle


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/