Voisin Canard Voisin Canard The Voisin Canard was an aircraft developed by Voisin brothers during 1910 and first flown early in 1911. It was named the "Canard" because of the resemblance of its forward fuselage to that of a duck's long neck while in flight. It was originally flown as a landplane: with the addition of floats it became one of the first seaplanes used by the French Navy. The Canard was, even by the standards of 1910, a curiously regressive design, its layout reminiscent of Alberto Santos-Dumont's 14-bis of 1906. As first flown at Issy-les-Moulineaux by , the aircraft had an
Canard (aeronautics) aft relative to the front surface. A lifting canard generates an upload, in contrast to a conventional aft-tail which sometimes generates negative lift that must be counteracted by extra lift on the main wing. As the canard lift adds to the overall lift capability of the aircraft, this may appear to favor the canard layout. In particular, at takeoff the wing is most heavily loaded and where a conventional tail exerts a downforce worsening the load, a canard exerts an upward force relieving the load. This allows a smaller main wing. However, the foreplane also creates a downwash which can