Good news and not so good news.
The Good: Had a chance to get out to the flying field this past Friday afternoon for a few minutes and fly the electric Vortex 32. First flight I managed to inhale a small rock into the prop and and broke the tip on take off. Flew anyway. That was the APC 10X5 I have been using since the beginning. Didn't have another 10X5 on hand so I went with the "monster prop" being an APC 11X5.5 and what a difference that was!
I've now got unlimited vertical and other than the sound I think the electric Vortex 32 performs speed wise comparable to a similar sized turbine model. A fellow flyer was there who had seen it fly before and commented "THAT was VERY IMPRESSIVE!" It definitely lands a lot better than any turbine model I've seen as the wing loading is still a very respectable 26 oz./square foot. It really is a floater on the landings. Just dead stick the motor on final and she glides right in.
The not so good: I managed to perform the balancing act I had detailed in the post above, and found that in order to acheive the correct CG of the fuselage I'm going to need about 17-19 ounces of weight in the nose between the nose gear former and the front of the servo tray in order to compensate for the weight of an OS 40LA and muffler. This means the wing loading is going to go up to about 32 ounces/ square foot and I'm not real enthused about that. But that is the plan and I'm going to try it anyway.
I happened to take another look at the included plywood parts that fit in the fuselagethe semi-circle pieces and the hardwood rails....the diameter of the semi-circle is just a shade larger than 3~1/2", so I think the intention here was for an electric ducted fan. That might work, but from my limited experience with ducted fans I should think you'd have to create a thrust tube behind the fan extending rearward from the rear of the fuselage to achieve good performance. I don't think you'll find a 3.5 inch ducted fan that can match the published thrust of the Scorpion outrunner motor turning the 11X5.5 prop which is supposed to be 102.75 ounces, which is right at a pound more thrust than as spec'd with the 10X5 both running 4S lipos. At 81 ounces RTF that's a 1.27 thrust to weight ratio.
Will follow up with the glow conversion.
Rube