It seems more people are looking into electric as a way of getting into flying C/L. I am not sure of setups as it takes quite a bit of power to drag around a plane and the lines.
I have written some code for a microcontroller to control an ESC but am yet to buy any motor/esc/battery setup. Some of these timers like the ZTRON already seem to be on the market, so it shouldn't be too long before they are more commonly available.

It will be interesting to hear how you go with this.