Dupre...you got it right...see the Beech Starship, Piaggio Avanti, and some of Burt Rutan's designs...the 'tail' is in the front, (canard) creates lift upward just like the wing...enhances stability...generaly dynamicaly stable, aids in turbulance penetration, less drag equals less power needed, for a given speed.... Other advantages include being able to actualy see your tail...icing, problems, issues, disymetry... So why aren't there more? The consensus is that the aviation market isn't very keen on change, new designs, especialy when a billionare has to sit in the back and try it out for the first thousand hours. The Piaggio is a perfect example of designing a plane that all surfaces are considered a lifting device...you can put some smaller engines on them, it flies higher and faster then most turboprops, and gives some people thoughts that they get close to jets...now if they designed jets with Canards, I suspect you would see some really nice performance increases. The Piaggio with some jet engines...???