Hello Evan,

We already have seen the fuselage of auction 2 is less high, and is also scratch built.

Blue lines are the references.
I did mark the difference with closed red squares front side!
Backside with open red squares!

Ed did try to reduce the air resistance as much as possible so designed the fuselage "around" the old reeds radio equipment the way I do design gliders at this moment
To check if the components will fit in the fuselage I often do make rings of massive copper wire so copy the cross section for the most critical positions


See the picture, you see the height of the backside behind the wing is less than the frontside, because of the battery beneith the fuel tank in the front!

On most picture we see a double bottom line, tank compartiment and backside fuselage. You see the reason why!

So, Evan:
>>>>>>>>>>>>&g t;>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>&g t;>
The reason for the cut out in the T2 wing is because it is much thicker than a standard wing. That is why the fuselage looks thinner. It is not, of course, but the wing simply sits higher in there.
Evan.
>>>>>>>>>>>>&g t;>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>>>&g t;>
Is not true!

The reason Ed did reduce the backside of the fuse as much as possible is maybe also because of the more level surface (less turbulences) of the bottom side during inverted flight.
I did noticed this before when explaining the Orion as a Tricycler!
(and would come back on this later, so!)


Cees

Have to agree with Cees on this one. The Taurus 2 fuselage doesn't just LOOK more thin and streamlined, it IS. The black section on the paint scheme actually has to curve some toward the back to work. The red and while stripes are both thinner to be able to retain the Taurus paint scheme. When you don't compare them side-by-side, the difference is not so striking. That's one of the reasons I feel the T2 fuse was designed and built later in an attempt to improve flight characteristics of the previous Taurus.

The pattern goes like this...you design, build, fly, TAKE NOTES as my picture shows Ed did, then build the next plane to see if the changes help. Ed TOLD me he did that on the Simla; he took notes on possible improvements, but in the case of the Simla, the next plane never came. The Simla was literally lost, (it disappeared from the crawlspace under his former house), and he lost interest in R/C in favor of his business and photography.

I haven't seen anything in print that says Ed felt the Taurus 2 was a definite improvement over the original, or that describes the Taurus 2's flight characteristics. I didn't see him WRITE about the Taurus 2. Maybe it could be implied that the plane MUST have been an improvement, but I don't see any proof. Sometimes changes are made that don't work out as well. I know that Ed wrote a small article saying what changes should be made to the original Taurus to fly better on proportional. I don't know if that article was written AFTERWARD, (when he had a change to see the results), or if it was written beforehand, such as "I'm going to do thisthatand the other...because I think it will help". If anyone can get his hands on that small one-page article and can find a date, I like to know what it is.

Any comments??

Duane

Sorry Cees, I got it wrong, it is the rear part of the fuselage that is slimmer, the nose bit up to the wing is the same as the standard Taurus, but with the thicker wing you have to match the wing profile at the trailing edge, hence the change in fuselage profile. If you look at the photos of the wing centre section I think you can see that this was originally similar to the standard Taurus plan shape, but was then sawn and vee'd to straighten the trailing edge, so the sloped ribs. This mod was seen a lot, specially with the aftermarket foam Taurus wings that appeared, I believe that the 'Zeus' used a modified foam Taurus wing with just this idea to get the sweepback.
With a wing this thick the centre reinforcement would be easy, and a bit of f/glass wrapped around and you have the T2 wing. So long as the spar is adequate the bit of sheeting removed for the radio gear would not affect the bending strength. It would be interesting to see the bottom of this wing to see if the gear torsion arms are in-line or slightly swept, like the wing.
The T2 instructions mentioned were published the same time as the photo of Ed 'in Japan', later in 1963, and the T2 illustrated is definitely a standard Taurus fuselage and wing, with the mods listed. It would seem that Ed had been flying his new T2 for a while before those particular words were published.
Evan.

No Evan, the landing gear is straight. There are no sloped ribs, but really 60 deg triangles. I reckoned these are "cap strips" later put over the original ones to thicken the wing, but that's mere guessing. Would be great if someone could inspect the wing.

Another shot I came across to add to the collection. Taken sometime in 1961.

Ray

I haven't seen those pics before...must be a completely new wing then, possibly with diagonal ribs for torsion resistance. If someone can get a thickness measurement at the centre and some basic overall dimensions that would certainly tell us a lot. We could compare it to a Top Flite or MAN plan and see how close, or not, this thing really is...
Evan.

Would be convincing to assume this wing was built as it is now, if there were not those disagreeable details.

Pro new: low weight, outer ribs in flying direction, landing gear straight.
Contra new: upper center strip seems to be cut lengthwise and tapered (wing cut and sweep added later), old sewn hinges only covered, blind nuts for reeds servo and rails for pro servo.

The latter is especially strange. The #2 fuse has no holes for reeds servos even though the servo rails seem the same as in #1 fuse. There are only the holes for the pro servos (and a cutout for the cables) sitting across the fuse.

The cut center strip could also mean the dihedral was reduced later, but why is it tapered then? The bottom strip seems uncut and not tapered, but it is not as wide as that of wing #1 (where the blind nuts are in the strip while they are at the strip's edge on wing #3).

BTW, wing #3 seems to have about the same root chord length as #1. I measured the chord length related to the distance between the blind nuts from pictures. Ratio is 3.37 for #1 and 3.18 for #3.

But #2 fuse seems to have different proportions lengthwise. The antenna outlet is far behind the canopy because it is on the trailing edge former. Both visible formers seem to be cut out quite roughly. There are two "half" holes in the TE former (and two corresponding pressure marks on wing #2), and a similar "half hole" is in the fuselage side. Very strange.

The cutouts and holes could be later modifications, regarding the pressure marks are on the later wing #2. Maybe fuse #2 and wing #3 were really built from scratch, together slightly modified, and later the fuse was modified more with wing #2.

Any more bids?

UStik - That is correct. Just for the record :

1960 Spreng, Youngblood, Mathis
1961 Spreng, Brown, Brett
1962 Kazmirski, Nelson, Ritchie
1963 Kirkland, Ritchie, Usher
1964 Weirick, Ritchie, Brooke
1965 Weirick, deBolt, Coleson

Ray

UStik,

When you have a story, you only have to ask yourself when, not why.

Ed did make the Taurus fuselage from the crate on the right side , and the wings on the left side scratch, before they went to Africa.
No single part from Top Flite in it!
His primair contest Taurus.(Oldest Taurus on Earth)

He wanted to improve the Taurus with sheeted horizontal stabiliser and fin. Because the silk covered tailplane was a shortcoming, a compromis!

The consequence was that he could not use the wings anymore because of the centre of gravity
To much afterwards because of the weight of the tailplanes

So he also must make the wings #3, light and with the right “swept back�. So straight TE.
And that was not problem we all know! (he simple did calculate that!)

This together was one action! Carrier Taurus was born, still with reeds radio.

The wings of auction 1 he had spare on this moment and could not use these anymore with the original fuselage, so he could use these now for the Taurus fuselage from auction 1 (Top Flite)

These (old) wings must have been better for some reason than the originals Top Flite wings because they were labelled as “A�.


I still waiting for a picture of my Oldest Taurus on Earth

Cees

Who actually said that Germans are stubborn?

Gentlemen,

When I am waiting I look with you over the borders of time my way, if you want.
Listen,

As inventor you know there will be I time you cannot update your good and only old contest Taurus anymore.
Fit it with sheeted swept back wings was the last action after first fit it with proportional radio. (Belgium/carrier)

What to do now?
Ed did not had any choice .

Design a new airplane with everything you learned so:

sheeted planes, wings and tail
NO HOLES IN THE D-TUBE ANYMORE
Keep all the "goods"

Solution!.

Blow up the Taurus from auction 2 to proportions you can fit the proportional radio without cutting in the centre section of the wings.
More power under the motor hatch and>>>>>>>>>>>&gt ;>>>>>>

go with the SIMLA

This was the third "Taurus" variant Ed did talk about, after the "swept back" and "Top Flite" Taurus.

JUST LIKE TAURUS


Cees

Cees, I basically agree, but I think Duane showed the only known descriptions of Simla at the beginning of this thread. He somewhere implied thad Ed admitted the name could simply mean sim-la (similar) to Taurus. Simla was even VERY modern in that it had ingenious plug-in wings. And I think Simla was big for reasons other than just accommodating the R/C gear.

UStik

I never mean this, but I only think logic with all I know.(post 510)
I know nearly every fact of the thread, and do not want to prove them anymore.

One simple fact, In the past, long time ago! I did said Ed probably did use a "preproduction" kit to promote the Top Flite Taurus!
Now we know there even were 2 Top Flite Taurusses at the time of the crate!! Exact identical!
(So also two indentical pilots UStik but just not on that picture of the crate and so only personal written labels are valuable when you can compare the handwritng, LOL post 369 page 15)

So
>>>>>Who actually said that Germans are stubborn? <<<<<<<<<
is not what I said and not what I mean.
I built modelairplanes hardware more thane 42 years, you software I did understand! So there is a different way we look to the same pictures.


SIMLA,

Of course there are more improvements, but Ed could not improve his Old Taurus anymore so, had to.

Cees

Extract from a 1964 Brit magazine obviously referring to the beast I showed in post #149. More lost history. Did it fly sucessfully and what ever happened to it. The Nelson model was probably the Jetfire.

Ray

UStik.....See post #429 on page 18 for info on the Simla name. I wrote a small article on the story of the Simla that appeared in the "In the Air" section of the October 2007 Model Avialtion, (I believe).

Ed DID make the comment that when doing flight demonstrations of the Simla, he would fly the Taurus and the Simla back-to-back, then tell his audience that the Simla flys "SIM-LA" , (similar) to the Taurus I'm sure this was a much funnier joke in person than me relating it now.

I agree with your conclusion....designing of the Simla, and the (King Altair by Vic Husak) had much more to do with what Ed felt would be better FLYING CHARACTERISTICS of a large model compared to a smaller one. They all tried their versions of the large pattern plane. In that "Big Stuff" article you attached you can see Curt Dimberg's version of the Simla as well, which looked very SIM-LA to Ed's.

Unfortunately the original plane shown in the ad was damaged within minutes of when that picture was taken when a professional photographic light fell on the plane, (right at the C/G point of the fuse), and after repairs Ed said it weighed 12 ounces more than before. This made it impractical for high-performance pattern competition when there was a .61 engine limitation. Like Tom Brett's cool-looking TBX-1, (attached), it didn't perform well enough to make a name for itself on the contest circuit. Shortly afterward, Ed dropped off the scene as business concerns became more important.

Duane

Talking about Kurt Dimberg, This is what he had at the 1966 Nats. Hard to tell if it's big or not.

Ray

Gentlemen,

Just for education.
Because there is often spoken about the thick wings Ed did use and the max I did read was 22 % I did draw the Naca 2419 and NACA 2422 in one sheet.
Nothing changes on position of leadind edge and trailing edge, but the topside of the 22 % airfoil is 6 mm / 1/4 inch higher than the 19%.
Differences in bottom side is about 3,75 mm / 1/8 inch.


Cees

That particular plane doesn't look large. Maybe Evan knows the date of the "Big Stuff" article...he is the one who gave it to me when I was researching the Simla

Lots of experimentation went on back then...and it was all before retracts and tunes pipes during the "SPA-legal" era. Some of the designs worked, some didn't.

Duane

Gentlemen
I am studying all the information we have in this thread and pictures from our Taurusses and I see there was still an explained situation.
Why Ed did use the wings of the oldest Taurus on Earth with his Top Flite Taurus fuselage on the Internationals, and why not the original Top Flite wingset

I will explain.

When you design a plane for the less experienced pilot what is one of the changes you make?
Yes, more dihedral/anhedral (what is the right word?), so the plane is more stabile.
Maybe then you can hand over the control during demoflight easier to another pilot to show the capabilities of the plane.
But, what when you flying the International world championships then?

YESSSSS!
Then you use the wings with less anhedral/dihedral. The right anhedral/dihedral! So the wings of the old contest Taurus!

To show this, the differences in dihedral/anhedral, again the Africa crate picture!
Yes again with lines in this picture!
Indicating the contest Taurus wings on the left side and the Top Flite demo wings on the right side.

I did make a projection of the centres of the ailerons in the top surface of the crate (vertical red lines).
Then I did make a line though these two projection points.
The both red dashes are the distances between the projection points and the outside/tip positions of the crate.
It is clear that the Top Flite wingset has a lot more anhedral/dihedral than the old 3/5 sewing wingset Ed did use in Belgium indicated in the different lenghts of the lines!

I think that could be the most important reason Ed did use the wings of his old wingset in Belgium and maybe also for the other contest meetings!
So, for who is interested see the picture!

BTW
He could not and would not change the Top Flite wingset because he has to fly demo’s again after the internationals of course.
The same we also could read about the Orion, a Hot Ship in the hands of Hot Pilots, we now can say about the contest version of the Oldest Taurus on Earth!
So that's why it also is an interesting question wich "combination" Ed really did use during the Nats in 1962.
But that's something for the future.



Cees

Cees, both wings have the same dihedral, see the angle of the U/C torsion legs to each other. Looks just the same as my Taurus wing when it's propped up at that angle. And, yes, a Taurus in 1962 would have been a really 'hot ship' back then, certainly not for beginners. Some things have changed in the last 40 odd years.
Evan.

Evan,

When you have to built an undercarriage (U/C) and you have no Top Flite kit components, you have to use piano wire.
Kit undercarrigas always are better then made it yourself U/C. (Hardened after bending)

I did draw the green lines with the legs of the Top Flite U/C.
The red lines are draw parallel with the scratch built U/C.

Ed would have made the U/C carefully, so I think parallel,
We see the "red" legs are not parallel anymore, conclusion the wings is "used", bended because of using!
(It is also not a standard main gear set on a wing with less dihedral! Because then they would have a direction the other way. See picture3 )

The Top Flite U/C is parallal, so build exact with the dihedral of the drawing.
So the bending of the U/C, as you said, has no relationship with the dihedral. For sure not on the left side in the crate!!!



We have seen the details of the plan a few messages back, I did built my Taurus from parts of copies of the same plan and figured out there are no modifications.
Also the air is still the same. What is changed? Nobody flies a 0.45 on a Taurus anymore!


Only "suggestion" that's done in the past is shortening the fuse. So show me a plan of that and I will built me one!
We also did see that every little detail already was in the fuses of the Top Flite Taurusses, as the extra lever of the nose gear stearing!

1 What I mean with the message about the Orion is that Ed could not win the Internationals with a all round version of the Taurus so maybe he did made it more "hot" with his own wings. Less dihedral is also better in gusty weather conditions!
2 Top Flite had something to do to make the Taurus atractive for the all round aeromodeller, so more dihedral in the wings and more room in the fuselage so every radio equipment had enough room in the fuselage.

So, the pictures:
The crate:
Green lines of the parallel mean gear of the Top Flite Taurus
Green lines parallel of the stringers of the bottom of the crate (reference)
Red lines, the main gear of the scratch built Taurus.

Second picture
My own Taurus as it had to be in the new situation!

Third picture
I think this is an example when you use an standard main gear and decrease the dihedral of the wings!

Cees

Heck Cees, I've been flying my Taurus for the last 12 years with an LA.46. I have no idea how you could balance one without lots of weight in the tail with any thing bigger/heavier. The airplane certainly does not need any more power than that. The standard Top Flite kit has the same dihedral that the original Taurus had, and the same as the models in the box, they had to be identical, otherwise the wing of one wouldn't have fitted the fuselage of the other... Not only that, but we have eyewitness statements that the two were identical. Both of them would have had hand bent U/C's too, as there was no kit/factory bent Taurus legs to be had at that time. Les Fruh was making steerable nose legs, and Ed likely used two of them simply because they were available. There is no suggestion anywhere that the wing thickness or dihedral was any different on the W/C model from any other Taurus, and if it was one, or a combination of either of the two African models, couldn't be anything but 'standard'.
Evan.

Evan, balancing your Taurus with a bigger/heavier Engine is no problem with such a long tail, and I think you know that already!
First you can put your battery back, and if that is not enough 1/3 of the weight in the tail to compensate noseweight will do.
I have on this moment a MVVS .61 and no weight, balance is good. HB 61 was also no problem, with my OSMax 61 FX battery in the receiver compartiment.
Do you know that a OS Max 0,46 AX is as heavy as a OPS 0,61 both with muffler!!

I did make a drawing for you from the fuselage of the Oldest Taurus on Earth, The fuselage is not only is less high, but also much shorter on the nose.
When Ed did make the tailplanes (stab and fin) thicker, profiled and sheeted he could not get the CG on the right place, look to the red square, that will be clear.
He did has to do nearly 4 times the extra weight of the tail in the nose, that was more than the weight of your engine Evan!!!!

He could lose this problem simple with only one action, swept back wings, straight TE. We see the result in wings #3.

And the fit of the Old wings?
Did you ever see the wings back of the MAN Magazine Taurus after the Internationals in 1963? I not!
After the Internationals we only see the taurus of auction 2 in several configurations. So, maybe they already were destroyed!
And!
Do not mix up stories and statements, we know now there were two Top Flite Taurusses on the moment of the crate, and they were identical, from Ed and Dennis.
But, Ed also did make the swept back Taurus as the original contest Taurus, oldest on earth and so the fuse was less height, narrower (post116), with shorter nose as the Top Flite Taurus so not the same. And we know now they together were in the crate!
The fuselage of this contest Taurus we see later in the auction 2.

And of cours Top Flite did made a extra piece on the nose of the Taurus so you would not have directly problems with your CG even with a light modern engine.
Let me know what you mean with "we"?
>>>>>>>>>>>>&g t;>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>
Not only that, but we have eyewitness statements that
>>>>>>>>>>>>&g t;>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>>

Cees

Not to cause an argument Cees, but to try and get close to the likely truth. The two fuselages pictured look like standard Top Flite fuselages, the bottom one has the wing cut out moved forward, the wing then had the sweep back added to compensate for the balance. Top Flite did not lengthened the nose, or change much aerodynamically from what Ed drew for them, they had already kitted Orion and Tauri, and probably knew better than to muck about with Ed's designs. Certainly the kit drawing is not much different from that presented in the 1962 RCM&E (and shown in this discussion) so far a dimensions are concerned. So far as engines I think that the later Taurus still used the Veco .45? My LA is about as light as you can get these days, not much different I would think except for the muffler, of course.
As to the fuselage heights, I think we should be careful about measuring from photos, as there will be errors due to the angle the photo is taken, and distortion from printing and reproduction processes. The side view of the carrier T2 shows the the thicker wing is pretty high in the fuselage, but I'm betting the bottom surface of the wing is close to where the bottom surface of the standard wing would be, so that the wing is a clean line along the bottom of the fuselage. In this case the wing chord line will be higher than the standard, and the trailing edge will be higher in the fuselage, so you either add a fairing at the trailing edge to match the original fuselage, or you cut down the fuselage to match the new wing. Given the amount of modification required it would be quicker to make a new fuselage, and I think this is what Ed has done. So, no kit bits then in the new fuselage, I doubt Ed ever built a Top Flite Taurus, he didn't need to, and this new fuselage is different enough to make the purchase of a kit a real expensive way to modify something that could be made quicker from scratch.
Evan

So what do we know from what we have? So far as I can tell the two fuselages in the 'African box' are identical. We have eyewitness statements to that effect. We know that neither is a Top Flite kit or even pre-production, as there wasn't even a proper plan for them, our eyewitness states that he got bits of brown paper with the model bits drawn on them directly from Ed, so that even after these models were built there still wasn't a 'proper' plan of the thing. We know that one of them in the box won the 1962 US Nats, but we can only guess as to which of the bits in the box it was, and that at least one of the wings, and one of the fuselages was flown at the 1963 W/Champs. We also know that by the time of the world champs there was another proportional equipped Taurus, possibly sharing the box with the original 1962 Nats model. Ed has saved that original model for us and it is now in the tender care of VR/CS. What happened to the 'other' original Taurus fuselage and wing? It is unlikely to be the T2 fuselage now being auctioned, as the differences are too great for a simple modification. We know that this new fuselage has all the signs of a hasty build and my guess is that it was built between the African adventure and the 1963 W/Champs along with the new wing, and that this model became Ed's model of choice until Simla. Which is probably why he kept this model too. What happened to the number 2 African Taurus? Probably gone the way of most R/C models of the time, but there is no evidence. If this scenario is correct, then the oldest Taurus in existence is the VR/CS model, whatever combination of bits it is. This does not make the T2 any less important, as Ed flew it for as long, and possibly longer, than his originals, but it cannot be as old as the other Taurus. It still leaves the question of what to do with it, it needs to be drawn, if possible, or at least a GA drawing made so we keep a record of what is one of the iconic models of our time, and so that the SPA guys have another model to add to the list.
Evan.