An interesting fact about this aircraft is that as the wings are positioned behind the center of gravity of the plane they typically induce the plane to pitch d

An interesting fact about this aircraft is that as the wings are positioned behind the center of gravity of the plane they typically induce the plane to pitch down. This is in contrast to a more normal layout that will typically pitch up. On the conventional layout this means that the horizontal stabilisers at the back need to produce a downwards/negative lift to stabilise the plane. The X-29 has canards at the front that have to produce positive lift to balance the plane. This means it's actually more efficient as both surfaces are producing useful lift and avoiding the penalty of the negative lift of traditional horizontal stabilisers. This is of course more complex in practice, with the CoG not being in a fixed position and careful positioning of wings to reduce the pitch-up tendency.