Putting all together, my research went to planes designed in the 20’s to late 30’s, with their simple but elegant lines, generous surfaces, forgiving flight characteristics. After few weeks I went for the Stinson Reliant, starting to design a possible fuselage structure and feasibility of the whole fpv installation.
In an effort to increase payload, improve reliability and performance, I then opted for a twin engine design. The construction gets more complicated but it’s a little price to pay for having a much more interesting plane to fly both in line of sight and first person view.
Back to study, the choice was once again a plane designed in the 30’s, the beech model 18.
Looking for informations on the Beech, I found out about a particular version which was developed to train crews for the WWII bombers. Called AT11 Kansan, it featured a glass nose and two gunner positions, one on the top of the fuselage, one below the tail.
Since the two versions are identical except for a few sections, I am currently trying to design the plane with replaceable hatches to switch between them. This way you can have the lighter and more aerodynamical standard d18 and the better camera positions of the At-11.