ORIGINAL: Villa
No doubt about it, a Canard is "different". Sometimes, due to high gusting winds, my Canard was the only one in the air. I would do 10 or more touch and goes each flight. I have wondered why I don't see more Canards at our field. Mine was exceptionally rugged because it was a SPAD. The 1" square aluminum fuselage was extremely rugged. Ugly? Yes, but I never thought that. I concluded that my Canard could not do a conventional snap-roll. It would knife edge all day long. Another characteristic I woulds like to warn others about is the tendancy for the nose to bounce into the air during a bad landing. The end result could be a total dissaster. But it is also a challenge. My plane once ended up with the nose in the soggy ground and the rest of the plane sticking up in the air, with the engine still running. It was hillarious. I learned that if a landing starts to be difficult, then at the instance that the mains touch the ground, I go to full down elevator. Since down elevator moves the elevator up on a Canard, the nose gets glued to the ground to prevent any nose bouncing. I flew mine for about 8 years. A Canard is different, and a challenge.
Any photos?
As for the flat spin, my first would do it - and didn't recover. But it was so light and slow that landing in the heather did no damage.
I think it was due to the inertia. With the engine at the front and battery at the back, and yaw turned it into a spinning dumbell with the mass at each end maintaining the spin.
My Candel models, especially the later ones, were models I would fly in any conditions. Delta wing is especially good in a blustery wind as it is less sensitive to gusts than a wing of higher aspect ratio. Candels had to undercarriage, but later ones had a wire skid that allowed touch and goes. They didn't bounce on landing.