FT Warbirds with pan/tilt FPV are lots of fun!

So first we built an FT Spitfire, as an exercise in foamboard/depron building. And it was awesome. So we built two more - a Mustang and a Corsair. And then we decided, why not put FPV on them? And we did. And this came out:

The fleet, parked up behind some copters shortly before the video above was shot:

All three are built out of 6mm depron and lots of hot glue and duct tape. We used FT plans to cut out the parts, and had to modify them a bit for the different material thickness and lacking paper layers. But it worked out nicely.

Thanks to clough42 for his awesome swappable Corsair plans! It's arguably the best flying one of the three, albeit the heaviest with all the reinforcements we had to put in to make it stable enough despite the depron's wobblyness.

Drive setups are identical on all three warbirds: NTM 2826 1200kv motor turning a Hobbyking 9x6 APC-style prop, driven by a 30A ESC and fed from a 3S 2200 battery. This setup seems absolutely adequate, giving a top speed of about 60km/h and easy 15-20 minute flight time at "normal" speeds.

FPV setups are identical as well, using Fatshark CCD Killer 600TVL cameras complete with pan/tilt servos. They come preassembled, I think produced directly by Fatshark - can definitely recommend, the combo works absolutely fine! Fatshark 5.8G 250mW transmitters are used, allowing to plug the camera directly into the VTX with no additional wiring.

As headtracker input for the pan/tilt FPV, the Mustang and the Corsair use the Fatshark Attitude SD goggles' built-in headtracker, which works nicely. On the Spitfire, I use a DIY Headtracker veclro'd on top of my old Fatshark Base goggles - which arguably works even better, it seems to have more accurate response and less lag.

So what's next? We'll be putting down some basic paintjobs on the planes. Just some stripes and markings, no camouflage - white is easiest to see in FPV, which is sort of important for us :) And we'll be attempting to fly all three at once, learning some proper formation flying as well as just having lots of FPV fun.

Stay tuned!