So, this is a bit of a weird one, lots of factors converged to bring about this baby.

First of all, Squirt’s been around for a while and was due for another update (the first frame was ordered on March 15, 2018, and was called the ‘McIntosh’. V2 followed in December). I still think it’s an awesome frame, but I don’t love how you need a 40mm stack to fit the Air Unit. And with the porkier Hero9 it’s starting to be underpowered.

Meanwhile, Chris Teal has been doing great with his Slammed Squirt, which has shown that even though shorter ducts may produce less thrust, they make up for it with less drag. Besides, with 6s builds these days it’s less important to squeeze every ounce of thrust out of the ducts.

And now for the weird part. One day Troy Naquin asked me what the Geyser ducts measured on the inside, and I told him it was 85mm across. I didn’t realize that he was going to ask Zhong Zhong of HQ props to make a Geyser prop. Had I known I would’ve A: told him the props needed to be 84mm, and B: urged him not to do it to begin with. I’ve always thought Geyser was superior to Squirt: the props are just 10mm bigger, but it takes bigger motors so it has better yaw authority and has way more power. But Squirt had already taken hold and made 3” props the standard for Cinewhoops, so Geyser never took off. I knew there were too few Geysers out in the wild to justify a proprietary prop.

But I didn’t know what Troy was up to, so the next thing I knew 85mm hexblades showed up at my door. They were super cool, but I had to shave them down to fit the ducts. They flew great and were eerily quiet, really nice props. But now we had a conundrum – ask Zhong to change the mold to 84mm or change the ducts. I didn’t think it was fair to make existing owners adapt, and Zhong didn’t want to change the mold, so a standoff ensued.

About a year went by and one day Troy asked me to design a screw-on molded duct for those props. I’d done some screw-on ducts for Hydrophobe ages ago but I didn’t love how it flew. But at least I knew that it could work.

Meanwhile, Stan had made a molded duct and I didn’t want to infringe on it. But then we decided that this was 85mm not 4”, and surely no one person can lay claim to the concept of ‘molding’, so we went for it. Even better, Troy wanted the duct for other projects he had in mind, so he wanted to buy and own the mold. That means I get a free shot at making a molded 85mm duct. How could I resist?

I drew up a 21mm deep duct. Geyser ducts are 35mm deep so I knew this would have way less drag. I toyed with the idea of having the duct mount above the arm, since that would shorten the struts and make them stronger. Maintenance would be more of a pain, so Troy and I decided on mounting it under the arm.

At the same time I was updating Ichabod Jr., basically taking the Hydrophobe layout but making it all carbon. It occurred to me that if I made a 85mm ducted quad around those bodies I would instantly have normal and waterproof options. A fully waterproof Cinewhoop would be heavy, but it would be pretty cool too. I love how those bodies house the electronics in a tidy 20mm stack, so I whipped up some short arms for Hydrophobe. I knew they’d have to curve slightly to work with the layout, but it turns out the bend was pretty slight and the arms didn’t end up as janky looking as I thought they would. In fact they look kinda nice.

I ordered the arms and took apart my Ichabod Jr., keeping the electronics and swapping out the motors for some Brotherhobby 2207.5 2500kv’s, the motors Troy envisioned for the ducts. With the printed ducts it flew as expected – faster and more powerful than Squirt, with less of the idiosyncrasies of ducted quads. With the duct design finalized there was nothing left to do but wait for the mold to get done, an excruciating 6-8 week process.

Fenster

Once I started working with Zhong I began thinking about how I could mold other parts. The Fenster ducts came to mind right away. I hate having to print nylon ducts for the bigger frames, and I wanted to make Fenster a real premium product. The Fenster duct was already finalized so I sent the file off to Zhong and ended up getting samples first. That duct was so stiff and resonant that it created flyaways, which made Troy and me super nervous about the 85mm ducts we were about to get.

Troy finally got the molded samples and he put them on a Geyser, and he got a flyaway. He could tune it out somewhat but it was nevertheless worrying. Now, Geyser is a 3mm monoplate, while my prototype had individual 4mm arms. I hoped and hoped that my more rigid frame would resist the resonance of the ducts.

Troy sent me a set of ducts and I immediately slapped them on and hovered the quad, and…no drama! It flew totally normally, with the odd squeak from a prop strike.

Gab built one up as well, using printed carbon PETG ducts. His verdict: flies phenomenal, less drag and lighter than Geyser, doesn’t feel as much like a whoop. He had some vibe issues, but carbon PETG is even stiffer and more resonant, so that’s not a surprise.

Here’s a quick unstabilized clip of me jerking it around. Aside from the doggy cameo check out how it dives pretty normally and how it recovers from a dive nicely without having to go full throttle and praying.

And here’s a ReelSteady’d clip from a few days later that shows A: how repetitive my flying is, and B: how nicely Terraplane flies. If you listen to the throttle you can hear how you can cut throttle and throw the frame around more like a 5”, and how it doesn’t freak out in air mode. You can also hear how little throttle it takes to pull out of dives.

So…?

So where does Terraplane fit in? It’s bigger than Squirt, about 30mm wider. It’s heavier as well, mostly because it uses bigger motors. That means it’ll produce more downdraft, and that might be an issue on indoor fly-throughs. On the plus side, it flies better, and lifts a Hero9 with a big battery with ease. You can get super long flights if you’re willing to put a 1500 or 1800 6s on it.

The ducts are real strong, but they are breakable. However, it’s way easier to swap one out – remove the prop, unscrew two screws. That’s a nice feature on a shoot.

I guess my point is that Cinewhooping has become enough of a thing that we’re at a point where you might need several different configurations for every possible job. Some jobs might require a naked Hero rig to go slow and hit tiny gaps, some might require the Terraplane to fly really fast and make acro moves. You got options.