The school project plane (collage level engineer students) was actually built very well. Very good lift on the wing but I think it had a flaw of being too short making it too "pitchy". Was a great project though.
I can sit here and type out on a keyboard until my fingers are bleeding, but nothing is going to teach much unless you actually play around and build some planes. Don't let that come off as harsh, just stating a fact. I just don't want you to get wrapped up in the text without going out and experimenting.
Lets start with the payload. Since it is cameras and they are always going to be in the same place, that is a good thing. that means your C0G will not be shifting from 'releasing' a load. So this is pretty much a non point now.
Fuel, this is going to be huge depending on the size of the plane and the size of the tank. I know nitro, but I have tried to stay away from nitro planes for this reason. Yet I have a 68" Decathlon with a 4 stroke and a 63" F4U Corsair lmao. But I have never flown them. I purchased them because it was a deal too good to pass up. basically, if you have the tank in front of the C0G, when it is full, it will be nose heavy or balanced depending on how you set it up. As you go through the flight, fuel is burned and the nose starts to get lighter resulting in a tail heavy situation. Tail heavy is very bad and makes the plane very hard to control. 3D planes like the Edge 540, Extra 260/300 and so on like to be slightly tail heavy, it helps them flip around in the air as well as hover and harrier. But I digress, this is beyond our scope.
In a perfect world, you will want the fuel tank exactly centered with the C0G. This way as you burn fuel, you are only making the aircraft lighter and not adjusting the CoG. So try to make it so the tank is right at CoG. I know your next question and that is "how do I know where to set the CoG?"... Yea, that is a hard one to answer as it is different with every plane. On most traditional planes with traditional wings, set the CoG at 1/3 wing chord from the front of the wings leading edge (that was a little redundant lmao). This is only a starting point and you WILL have to adjust later on.
As for wing style, I would use a flat bottom airfoil shape. These produce an incredible amount of lift which is what you need with a plane like this. Flat bottom is easy to build as well since you can do it on a flat surface and make the wing perfectly flat and straight. No jig required unlike with a 3D plane with a symmetrical wing. As for size of the wing/plane, that is going to be up to you, your wallet, and what you plan on doing with it. I don't have one on here (yet), but you need to use a wing loading calculator to determine what size to make the wing.
Also, put a few degrees of dihedral in the wing. This will help the plane fly much more stable. Only about 3º is needed. 1.5º won't have as much affect on the plane, but will still help without it looking like the plane was stored only on the wing tips lol.
Try this. Click on the Store tab at the top of the forum and download the RCH Trainer. I suggest V3, but you can do any of them. This plane has a KFM airfoil design which was popular back in the day when I created these plans, but now is a dead design and I need to update it. Build the fuse and then build a traditional flat bottom airfoil wing. Get some cheap electronics and fly it. Put a payload on it and fly it, adjust the CoG and fly it. If you crash, the most you are out is $3.00 worth of foam board and maybe a $3.00 motor shaft and a prop. This way you can test without risking a balsa build that took hours if not days or weeks. Foamboard is fantastic for prototyping. Give it a shot.
hahahahaha.