Jim,

interesting follow up project to Doug's beautiful build.

Your wait for the electric retracts should be over soon. While Kraft Multicons can still be obtained from time to time and there are also a couple of European manufacturers of electric retracts (e.g., Lado & Geizendanner I believe), Horizon is soon to release a set of nice e-retracts for classic pattern (among others) designs. They should be available some time this Summer. Their little counterparts (for up to 4 lb models) are also available now (see pics).

As for the three blade prop you'll probably be able to use a non e-prop which should make things easier to find an over square prop. However, there are several non taildragger classics setup with e-power which use 2 blade props (e.g., Jeff's [Bootalini] Aurora build here). I think the trick is to find high kV motors that can produce ~1400-1600W on a two blader. You could check out the info on Jeff's Aurora's Hyperion. I haven't done the research but I know there are motors available that can do this on a 12" prop which you should be able to turn.

What do you have in mind for cooling and battery swapping? Wing removal is the obvious choice for LiPo's but I was wondering if you might be thinking along the lines of A123's (or similar) for a single permanent pack (probably 8s)?

David.

Edit: Forgot the pictures. Here they are.