[doorgunner69]

Been racking my swiss cheese memory for what the drawback to canards is on fighter aircraft. I know the Russians have introduced them in the newest Su-27 descendents, but they are very rare other than the Typhoon.

Seems they have some drawback that counters their advantages, but it escapes me. They look like they could open up a lot of options to control airflow over the wings in extreme angle of attack flight where a stall might occur otherwise.

[Oztrich Boy]

Been racking my swiss cheese memory for what the drawback to canards is on fighter aircraft. I know the Russians have introduced them in the newest Su-27 descendents, but they are very rare other than the Typhoon. and the Rafale and the JAS-39 Gripen, AND the Chengdu J-10 AND the Chengdu J-20 AND the Shenyang J-15. (to mention just the current ones)

Drawback seen by US designers: NIH.

[tanknetter]

One issue is that the make the aircraft more unstable. Consider what happens when you let loose an arrow with the feathers in the front, not the back.

This is counteracted in modern fighters through computer controlled fly by wire that make massive numbers of control inputs/corrections every second.