concept

Tandem wing

An arrangement of two lifting surfaces one behind the other rather than a single wing. Intuition says more wing means more lift, but the rear surface must fly through air the front one has already pushed downward, so it always works less efficiently - the pair's total drag never beats a single long wing of the same total span. What the layout genuinely buys is control authority: four independently moving surfaces generate large pitching and rolling moments within a short span, which is exactly what is needed to turn hard among obstacles. Dragonflies fly this way, and a canard fighter makes the same trade.