Canard (aeronautics) flown, including the Ambrosini SS.4, Curtiss-Wright XP-55 Ascender and Kyūshū J7W1 "Shinden". These were attempts at using the canard configuration to give advantages in areas such as performance, armament disposition or pilot view, but no production aircraft were completed. The Shinden was ordered into production "off the drawing board" but hostilities ceased before any other than prototypes had flown. Just after the end of World War II in Europe in 1945, what may have been the first canard designed and flown in the Soviet Union appeared as a test aircraft, the lightweight Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-8 "Utka" (Russian for "duck"). It was
Gyroflug Speed Canard Gyroflug Speed Canard The Gyroflug SC 01 Speed Canard is an unconventional sports plane produced in Germany in the 1980s and 1990s. Inspired by the Rutan VariEze, the Speed Canard was an all-new design created without input from Rutan. Like the VariEze, the Speed Canard is a canard-configured mid-wing monoplane with wingtip fins that incorporate rudders. The two-seat tandem cockpit and canopy design were derived from Grob Twin Astir sailplane, and the nosewheel of the tricycle undercarriage is retractable. Construction throughout is of composite materials, and when the design attained German certification in 1983, it became the first composite canard