Posted for "JJ JOHNSON" <JJJOHNSON@ACCESSCOMM.CA>:

Bob I have to agree w/ you here. The only way I can think of explaining it
is, why do people build canards? The main reason that the Canard was brought
about was simply to have as many surfaces lifting as possible. So if this is
true, the opposite [conventional tail] would be to degrade the lift
performance of an aircraft. When Burt Rutan built the Varviggen and Ez He
was trying to get max speed out of minimum power and do it through max
efficiency. His answer to all that was the canard.

My two cents.

Jarrett Johnson
235/320 55%