So the plane will always try to pitch down? It sounds like a stable design as the center of gravity is in front of the lift center of the main wing. A disturb increases AOA will generate more lift on the main wings and push the nose down as the main wings always generate more lift than the canards. Am I right? I remember I saw a video of Rafael on level flight, the canards were clearly moving up and down(sure it was negative AoA).
Also, it seems the wingtip of J10's canards twist down a lot and it seems they are trying to reduce the downwash?
as seen in last post by LKJ86.
No, it is the exact opposite; when in positive AoA the plane naturally wants to pitch up, the canards have to actively deflect downward to keep the nose down, the design is unstable.
My point is that in those instance the canards does not produce negative lift to hold the nose downward, it merely has to produce less positive lift because lift was uniformly distributed between main wind and canard.
I can't say I noticed any canard twist? If there is twist it is very subtle...