Just be sure and leave the canard off if you don’t have the wings on…..

 

In one of the early CPs (Canard Pusher newsletter for you non-canard types) there was a builder who had his engine mounted as well as his canard and when he needed to talk to some other builders on the other side of the airport, he would fire up the engine and drive it over to the other side of the airport.

 

One day during the return trip he decided to setup on the numbers and give it a shot.

It was tracking great and he was approaching rotate speed so he gave it a little back pressure to see if the canard would come up. It did but it rose up so high that the prop began striking the runway, The canard would not respond to any control inputs because of the AOA it had achieved.

 

Now the prop is hitting the pavement so hard it’s causing the plane to pull to one side. Eventually it became totally uncontrollable and left the runway coming to rest inverted. Fortunately the tower was observing and got him some help right away.

 

Of course the FAA had to be involved as well. It turns out that they did not cite the pilot.

 

Drum roll please ……..

 

Because there were no wings on the plane ……… they determined there was ‘no intention to fly.’