My buddy, who builds, but does not fly any more-he's 85, and I are on our 8th canard, one of which was an SFW. Several years ago I also built 3 conventional SFW planes.

The conventional designs fly very well. They are good in cross winds. I did use a slightly larger vertical area. Normally, I would use 10%-12%, but went to 15% and had no problems.

Two of our canards are tractors, one with the engine in front and the other is a twin with the engines on the wings. We did convert the tractor canard to a SFW design for a try. I managed to flip it on take off and my buddy didn't want to fix the wing so we never actually flew it other than a 3D type tight loop.

There are 2 problems with a tractor, SFW canard. First, the prop blast is directly on the elevator. This gives you very sensitive pitch control. You have to watch it on take off unless you are slightly nose heavy. Second, sweeping the wings forward effectively shortens the plane. You end up with a very short coupled plane with the engine blowing directly on the elevator. In addition, I think the plane was balanced more to the tail than the straight wing version. Since I have flown 3D planes with the CG way back, I felt I could handle a half inch to the rear. I got a big lesson in not messing with the CG Gods. I rolled down the runway, put in my normal amount of up for take off and it did. But it kept on going and filpped around. I nearly made it back to flat, but managed to get a wing tip.

For a canard, find yourself a good CG program and balance it conservatively. I have one if you need it. I would also figure out how far you put the wing from the tail in a straight wing layout, then find the MAC of the SFW and adjust the fuselage length to match this.