flensr

Just stumbled across this page. I like most of the info but the parts about the tail horizontal stabilizer being a lifting surface isn't quite right. A stable conventional aircraft with the horizontal stabilizer in the back (not a canard), with the center of lift behind the center of mass, will have a wing that creates a nose-down pitching moment in addition to "upward" lift. That means that the tail of a stable conventional aircraft is actually pulling the tail DOWN, not creating lift in the same direction of the wing's lift. The diagrams and explanations in the original post have the tail's job backwards, essentially. That's one more reason why a canard aircraft can be more efficient than a conventional tail aircraft, because with a canard both the wing and canard are creating lift while with the conventional design the tail surface is working opposite to the wing's lift in order to counteract the nose-down pitching moment of the wing. This is true of essentially all conventionally designed "stable" aircraft, in most cases meaning ones with the center of lift (and center of pressure) behind the center of mass (center of gravity). I'm not sure if this is only a problem with this explanation, or if kerbal is also backwards on how this works... Here is a guide that shows some more details: https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/aeronautics-and-astronautics/16-01-unified-engineering-i-ii-iii-iv-fall-2005-spring-2006/systems-labs-06/spl8.pdf