Thanks for the note Mike.

I've always thought side area was more important up front (on or ahead of CG) for good knife edge. When I first saw the title of this thread, I thought someone else was pondering the merits of including or NOT including a canopy for similar reasons as I've stated.

The canopy is pretty small, but I wonder how much it really effects things other than just looking nice. I guess it's also a bit too round to act like a stabilizing surface. However, if you look at modern competition planes you often see guys adding tiny fins to the tops of their birds near the canopies to tweak KE response. The thing that confuses me about the (better) Ultrasport KE properties over the Kaos is that any additional side area seems to be at the CG or behind it.

I don't mean to morph the thread too far from it's original purpose. If nobody wants to talk about this here, I'll just go on pondering to myself or start a new thread.

I know the Kaos is a great bird even if it won't KE. I wouldn't have built 3 of them if I didn't love it.

Joe