One more thing I'd like to share with you today. This is something that hasn't been discussed ANYWHERE in connection with the Simla, but is common to ALL of Ed's planes that we know of. We never even thought of discussing it during development of the plans and building the prototypes. It has to do with Ed's method of handling the elevator pushrod WITHIN THE PLANE, and not using an external elevator pushrod. I carefully looked at every picture of the Simla, and to the best of my knowledge, I have NEVER seen any evidence of an external elevator pushrod.

If you look at Ed's Taurus, the Taurus II, and the "Unfinished Fuselage", they are all done the same way...with a small, uncovered HOLE at the tail that accesses a home-made dual-pronged elevator "horn", (see photos). The elevator horn is similar to the tradional way of doing aileron horns for strip ailerons back in the day.

We used the, (to us), "traditional" external elevator horns and split pushrods...but in fact, it is much more likely Ed used an INTERNAL pushrod accessed with a screwdriver from below. This method is actually very "cool" looking, because all you see are the elevators going up and down "like a real plane". Somebody should try it if they are handy with piano wire with a small plate soldered to it, (WELL).

In the pictures of Ed's original Taurus II, and the Unfinished fuselage all primed for painting, notice the ORIGINAL Kaz linkage and soldering. In both the Taurus II and the "Unfinished", the wire elevator linkage is sewn in place in the traditional way back in the early 60s. The white "Unfinished" fuselage looks pristeen in comparison...already to go, but never finished. As I said, ALL of these planes were finished the same way, and I have every reason to believe the original Simla had the "hidden" elevator linkages as well.

Duane