The comments below are written by a friend of mine, and he wants to be anonymous. But he knows his stuff, well he has to, it is required in his profession.:)

I am always a little uncomfortable about getting involved in these “which is the better” configuration discussions. The reason is that it is very often a function of the specific design requirements of the aircraft you are designing. Consider this: When Gripen (and many other modern aircraft) was designed, one of the strong candidate configurations was a conventional layout (albeit with a funny location for the engine intake). Now, if teams of aeronautical engineers, some with PhD’s in aerodynamics, decided that it would take some serious study and wind tunnel tests to decide which configuration was better, then maybe the answer isn’t so simple?

The analysis you make although valid, in one way disregards real aspects seen in modern aircraft.

To make a Canard-tailplane analysis most aerodynamists will do it with canards and tailplanes of the same size, with wings of the same size and the same degree of stability.

It happens that each aircraft has different parameters and more important different solutions, let us put two very basic examples.

Gripen Versus MiG-29 and F-16 and the F-22 and T-50 versus the Eurofighter

The MiG-29 and F-16 have LERXes which basicly add a lifting surface ahead of the wing and have the same function of the canard, so the LERX is basicly doing the same thing the Gripen`s canard is doing, reducing the supersonic aerodynamic center of shift movement thus reducing trim drag; in the case of the F-16, it has considerable forebody lift and has relaxed stability thus reducing even more trimming needs.
In the case of the MiG-29 its tailplanes are quit far from the center of gravity and have higher swept than the wing reducing trimming needs further.
Now what are the visible advantages of the Gripen?
well the delta makes for a big wing area with respect the small size it has and up to a degree offsetting thrust needs.

Now since this aircraft are not designed for supercruise the max speed up to a level is not as important, however let us go to its known performance.

The MiG-29 is faster than the Gripen and both the MiG-29 and F-16 have higher STR than the Gripen, the Gripen is smaller and has a higher ITR, this makes the Gripen economical in fuel comsuption and difficult to spot visually but it can not keep sustained maneouvres with both the MiG-29 and F-16 and very likely it won`t out accelerate the MiG-29

The Eurofighter has with the F-22 other features.

The F-22 due to stealth considerations has its tailplanes and wings with the same leading edge sweep however the F-22 has its tailplanes the farthest from the center of gravity by the fact of being located aft of the nozzles and main body section; the T-50 adds LERXes and considerable forebody lift.
Eurofighter has its canard well ahead of the wing but still below the cockpit further more they are relatively big inducing more drag and reducing the positive effects of canads vortices over the wing besides its canard has less sweep than the wing.
Both the F-22 and Eurofighter have relaxed stability.

Known facts the F-22 has a much higher supercruise ability and a much higher STR and very likely higher ITR

Now ask your self this do you think the americans made the F-22 with tailplanes because it has worse flight characteristics than the Eurofighters with canards at Mach 1.6?

The Eurofighter carrying its weapons in external stores also degrates greatly its stealthiness and performance

TVC makes for great very low speed maneuverability and good performance at very high altitude where air density is much lower. But I’m sure you know as well as I do that TVC can cause you to bleed airspeed at a very high rate if used improperly- and as they say, “Speed is life.”

Delta canard setups like the Eurofighter are good for high speed “shoot and scoot” BVR combat where you are executing a cat and mouse BVR game where you may need to come in firing/radar range of a target and you want fire your missiles, turn very quickly and efficiently at M=1.0+ and light your burners and be gone.

that is more or less in line with the F-22 philosophy but saddly dogfights are still a possibility, so the best is BVR fights but WVR combats always are a possibility.

This is an off-topic reply because F-16 is a tailed all-moving elevator a/c whereas Mirage 2000 is a no all-moving surfaced a/c.

At supersonic velocities (Mach 1.6 and 36,000ft) the sustained turn rate of the Eurofighter betters all but the F-22, while its instantaneous turn rate is superior to the F-22.

First with canards, Mirage-cheetah or Mirage 50’s turn rate and climb rate are better than its without canards, so this already refuted your opinion of which canards are useless.
Second, you repeatedly violated the same condition principle.
Thirdly, MiG-21 would be a more pure interceptor than MiG-23. Objectively, MiG-23 was between MiG-21 and MiG-19 as a reverter having 2Mach speed without loosing capability of dogfight MiG-19 owned.

Cobra just is a banking recovery due to lack of efficient lateral stability.

This is a double standard judgment.
To compare two objects you must put them en same condition.

If F-5 was an a/c with fixed tail I would admit Kfit lost.

The Eurofighter might be superior to the F-22 at Mach 1.6 at 36000 ft in ITR, it is possible, but well the MiG-23MLD it is said to be superior to the F-16A at very high speeds and altitudes, now does it mean the MiG-23MLD will be superior at all speeds?

You are making a very big assertion, which by the way is not proven by mock combat, the F-22 was not shot down by any Rafale or Eurofighter in mock combat.

The second point is why justify a tailess? or Justify the Kfir unability to beat the MiG-23 or F-5?
what makes a fighter better than other is just having a better lift and thrust yield in its kinematics.

If Rafale beats the F-15 but not the F-22 is simply a result of better lift and thrust yield with the F-15 and a worse lift and thrust yield with the F-22.
The end result is important, how much lift and thrust the aircraft has available while turning, not if it has canards or tailplanes.

You can have a tailess like the Mirage 2000 beating a AJ-37 Viggen, MiG-23 or MiG-21 but at the same not beating a MiG-29 or a Rafale beating an F-16 and LCA but not beating a F-22 or even more the Kfir not beating the MiG-23 but beating the F-104 and Lighting.

ALL aircraft are compromised and optimized to some flight envelop.

Do i believe the MiG-1.44 could had not beaten the F-22? no i do not it is possible the MiG-1.44 was better than the F-22 but stealth counts a lot these days and the Russians saw you need it, so they scrap it and built the tailed T-50.

The Mirage 2000 is more or less even with the F-16 but in reality is not an aircraft that will beat the F-16 at long sustained maneouvres, it is not the fight it is good for it.

Saddly for deltas they bleed energy fast at low speeds and it is proven by the differences in their ITR and STRs, now does the Gripen have chances of beating the F-16 or MiG-29? yes it does but is not like many here imaging just a one side victory, if other countries continue buying F-16s and MiG-29 even when they are also offered Gripens shows well that.

The F-22 is the most advanced western aircraft and perhaps still in the world, the most advanced aircraft in aerodynamics still are Russian and American, the LEVCON was introduced by a Russian aircraft, the triplane configuration on a fighter jet also russian on the Su-33, supercruise was brought by the F-22, the Cobra by the Su-27.
No post stall agility means no fifth generation.
Were are not even mentioning the F-16AFTI and F-15 ACTIVE.

The F-22 has F-15 ACTIVE ancestry; the T-50, Su-35 ancestry, both designs deleted canards explain why?
Simply you do not need them.

an old saab draken double delta can do cobras… without taleplanes..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqiDEcfSnXs

Att extremly high AoA canards are extremely effective….
as i know, Gripen has done 100 deg in tests without limits.

That is not a cobra. is a banking recovery due to lack of efficient lateral stability

Ah but a detail you fail to analize, moving the CP or aerodyanmic center is not always beneficial, you either can create excessive pitch up stalling the wing and canards are to stall first limiting AoA, the Su-27 and F-22 can do the Cobra simply because their tailplanes are more efficient at high AoA and due to hysteresis that creates a down force, you do not need canards to do the cobra and most post stall maneouvres the F-22 does not use them and the SU-27 does not use them for the Cobra, in fact canards are less effective at really high AoA that is the reason the Su-37 and Su-35S still have tailplanes even having canards.

T-50 has already delete them and uses LEVCONs a much smart proposition than draggy canards

What does “fulcrum” in this context exactly mean?

Irrelevant.
What matters is current distance between Cp of the wing and Cp of the canard/elevator.
In most cases canard wins and even more during maneuver, when Cp shifts rearward, towards the elevator.
It’s only when the Cp is in the AC of the wing, that the momentum arm is the smallest (needs largest trimming force) for canard configuration, but the wing has the best drag/lift characteristic, at that point and so very efficiently mitigates total drag, which is very useful during sustained maneuvering.

Correct me, if I’m wrong, but I’m not sure whether you know, why planes have LERX.
You’re mixing some things here, hence my conclusion, but I could be wrong…

i am not wrong you are wrong, the center of gravity is where an aircraft is balanced longitudinally, that is the reason it is called center of gravity.
the canard configuration suffers less at supersonic speeds relativelly just because of additional lif ahead of the center of gravity, so any movement of the aerodynamic center will be balaced by the canard or LERX.
But a tail heavy aircraft also has to be balanced in the same way a nose heavy aircraft by trimming.
Think about that, that is the reason the Viggen is stable.
in an unstable design with or without canards you can not make the aircraft excessively tail heavy or you will pay with drag trim