Hi Chris,

thanks for your PM. I thought I'd reply here for continuity of the thread and for future reference including others who might be building this classic.

I set mine up to clear an 11" prop allowing an inch (1") of clearance. For this the distance of the main gear wing bottom to ground is of 4.62". With retracts, the gear is setup so the nose gear spans the full length of the tank/retract bay with a 5.2" retract radius using a Robart 602 mechanical gear. The actual radius depends a bit on the depth at which the gear base is mounted but the distance from the bottom of the fuse to the ground on the nose is 4.57". Note that the base of the fuse at the nose is a little higher than the base of the wing at the main gear position - hence the difference in height between the 4.62" mains and the 4.57" nose. If you only plan to turn 10" props, then you can make the gear a tad shallower or use these measurements and gain 1/2" of ground clearance - not a bad idea.

This puts the DB proud on its legs so you should aim to use 5/32" struts whether fixed or retracts. Naturally, the bird looks that much cooler with retracts and is the right thing to do on a classic such as this one. With retracts you'll also need to use smallish wheels so that the nose retracts completely. I set mine up with 2" mains and 1-3/4" nose. If you use fixed gear, you could increase these by 1/4" each and reduce the strut length correspondingly.

Incidentally, wing airfoil is NACA 16% thickness.

I look forward to seeing your progress!

Cheers, David