We are going to do the four inch long range under 250 g, quad shootout, and i know a lot of you guys have been asking for this, but i've been testing each of these quads in different scenarios. This year and we've been doing some long range with my tbs crossfire tango 2 antenna there and my nano receivers on each of them. We'Ve been testing each one of them with crossfire and really sending them out there, and if you're brand new to sub 250 g 4 inch quads for long range. There are two different ways flying styles that you can commit to with these quads. So, first up there is the standard 4s 850 milliamp battery. That is going to be my recommended battery for freestyle. If you're wanting to freestyle these quads, you can also freestyle them with this 850. It gives a really nice power to weight ratio and, if you're, looking to freestyle with this quad, you might want to go with the higher kv motor we'll talk about the differences between the lower kv and the higher kv, as well as for long range and freestyle. There'S a difference there and we'll talk about that in this review, but the long range battery of choice is going to be the 4sp 3000 milliamp from gap rc. This will get you above that 20 minute flight time. If you get your throttle at the lowest point, you want to have throttle position on the screen, so it shows you where your throttle level is from 100 to zero.
So you want to find that sweet spot where you just keep the nose up on the quad. For long range, you're going to get the longest flight time, if you do that type of method for long range flying so let's go ahead and let's just jump right into this and let's get this shootout started. We'Ll start with the first of the pack, the first one out of the gate, inspired by dave cfpb that kind of kicked off this whole trend of four inch. Sub 250 g long range quad craze. Here we go all right guys before we get started with the shootout. I want to let you know how we're going to go about this i've been testing most of these quads out in long range settings, so they they are field tested and they have been sent way out there with the crossfire nano on board and the reliability factor Is going to be a big thing for you guys? You guys are talking about that on the forums you want to know what components are used and how reliable the flight controllers escs and the motors are in these power combos from the various different companies and we're going to talk about price and what you get we're Going to talk about the frame that they chose to use on theirs, we're also going to talk about the durability factor, the freestyle factor and the long range factor, as well as the flight times for each of them.
We'Re also going to talk about the weight and my final overall favorite out of these four at the end of this video it's it's gon na surprise, you so stay tuned for the end of the video and, if you're interested in learning more about each of these Quads, seeing some flight characteristics and the tune on each of these quads stick around because i'm going to go through each one of them now and at the end, we'll do our final overview of all four. Here we go alright, guys now we're taking a look at the flyw explorer lr. This is the one that set off the whole craze and really kind of opened my eyes to the possibilities of long range flight under 250g, with a quad that will actually get out there and be able to fly on a 4sp lion battery and really get us. Some distance, you will not be able to fly this under 250g with the the 4sp 3000 pack on there for long range. That is the one big thing: if you're going to fly the 4s milliamp battery, that will also pull you over 250g. For a lot of these quads, if you want to fly it under 250g, you're gon na have to put the 4s 650 on there. So that's that's one thing that i've done um in my reviews and you will still get you know five to seven minutes flight time depending on how how punchy you are on the throttle.
How much throttle you use – and i have to say that this particular frame with the dead cat style, meaning the arms across the front that have no props in view here, stretched out in the back. This was one of my favorite frame designs out of all four of these, the diaton roma f4. There also has that dead cat style and the baby croc as well. The baby croc just has a little more extension of the front arms versus the flywheel explorer. So i kind of like the front arms to be a little straighter across for that true dead cat style, the baby croc, the props are just almost in view, but not quite so. One thing to consider there, but props completely out of view on this one replaceable arms and really nice, three millimeter carbon fiber arms bottom plate. Here we have a center mount stack and that's the goku f4 with i believe there were 13 amp esc's on board. So yeah 13 amp esc's d, shot 600 24 by 24. um very strange that well in 16, millimeter by 16 millimeter mounting stack. So this is one of the smaller formats. Typically, you see 20 by 20 stack, but they actually used a little smaller stack. Now. One thing i have to comment on was the reliability factor on this. One, for the goku stack seem to be a little subpar for some people. There are reports, so some people having some issues with their goku stack.
I personally didn't have any problems and – and mine is still flying so no problem there. We have a backseat cadets vista in the back and this one used the full size, vista camera, which i do prefer. So that is going to be a big factor here versus some of the other ones in this review. So we also have gps on the back, which is an absolute must if you're gon na fly long range – and we have that really nice atomic flywheel singular antenna for the cadx vista system for your dji goggles. This has a really nice clearance from all the rf down here and really gives you a nice signal back to your goggles, especially if you're running 700 milliwatt now the top plate up here. It is a fairly short body, but you can get the 850 on here. Comfortably you can also get the 3000 on here as well. It fits just behind the mount for the insta 360 go and a big positive about this one. If you already have an insta360 go, this one is great: it comes with the tpu insta360, go mount and plenty of camera protection up in the front too, with this tpu bumper and that's, something the others don't have they have nice mounts up front, but we'll talk About each one of those coming up, but this one is the only one that had sort of a full face plate front bumper and good protection for your insta360 up top, and this didn't fail me.
This held the insta360 go really well and we're, using a skinnier strap on this one. We have usb port there and just above that for betaflight. We have my nano and that is the tbs nano. You can see the mortal t coming out the front here, so they have it in a good position in the front. Most of them have it in the back. So we'll take a look at that as well. We also have gem fan props on here. These are the 40 24 props and these worked out pretty well for me, so the average flight time on the 4s 850 battery with these motors, the 1404 27 100 2750 kvs, the average flight time for the 850 for me, was around seven to ten minutes and It depends on, if i'm, trying to freestyle it or not, if you're going to freestyle, choose the lipo if you're going to do long range choose the 4sp 3000 and the 403p 3000 for me at my lowest minimum throttle point was getting me a cruise range um. Well out there miles out there and also giving me an upwards of 20 minutes flight time um, so you're gon na have to play around and experiment with your throttle range and keep your throttle down as much as you can. But this one for me just this one will remain for me one of my favorites, because it was the first one out of this type of four inch long range series that i got to play around with, and i sent this one out there on a day Where it was extremely windy, tested out with a 4s 850 on board and made it back with minimal battery in a really windy test.
So the first impression was that this can handle quite a bit of wind. It was flying in over 15 mile, an hour wind, and it made it back. It was a little bit jittery in some of the video as far as the insta360 is concerned, but later on, when i was flying it out in the fields with a zero wind situation, it flies beautifully. So i think the tune on this one is also pretty good, and i think this one's probably one of the better tuned out of the bunch. So you know big big props to flywood for getting a great tune on this one. So this one overall is going to be a great choice if you're looking for that dead cat style, quadcopter frame uh for for sending it out there at long range with no props. In the view, i think this is a great frame and one of my more favorite frames out of the bunch. I think the the only thing that might be a black mark on this quad might be the reliability factor of the goku f4. But i think that that flight controller is getting upgrades on quality control all the time, because flywheel has really released. Some nice esc stacks and motors over the last couple years, so their quality control is continually rising and and well above companies like eachine, all right guys. Moving on now to the iflight chimera. This is the 4 inch version.
Obviously, there is also another 7 inch version and i have it just sitting over there, the chimera 7 for long range. I would recommend, starting out with a 4 before you jump right up, uh into a seven inch, it's it's, quite intimidating. If you haven't flown quadcopters before so um. There are two different types of frames available for the chimera, and this one is the unibody truex frame, and this one will be more or less for guys that want a high durability factor. You will get props in view of the camera, they did use the cadx backseat vista setup back here with the full size, cadx camera, which i prefer um. But again you do have props and view. If that bothers you, then you can put a mount on the very top and you can run an action camera on the very top naked gopro or your insta360 go either way now the the other frame they have available. Is that dead cat style? So i believe, there's, two different versions of that, but this one comes in around three hundred dollars. With the caddix vista on board for the dji bind and fly version, you can add crossfire nano to that and that'll bring you up to around 330 dollars. So getting you closer to the cost of the flywheel explorer lr that one by the way i didn't mention it before, but that one cost around 350.. So the price is a little bit higher on that one and that one surprised me, because that one's, using 13 amp esc's and on the chimera we have 1404 3000 kv motors.
We have an f4 flight controller and 35 amp four in one esc, so that's going to be, in my opinion, for getting out there and for freestyle it's just going to be a little more reliable and i really haven't had a lot of problems ever with a Lot of the iflight controllers, i've i've, been maybe i've been lucky, but i've had a really good time flying these flight controllers and then they haven't failed me. You have quite a bit more room inside this frame as well compared to some of the other ones. The only other one out of the bunch that has as much room inside the frame would be this singular stack setup for the cg on the the baby, croc and i've talked about this before in the review for this one, i prefer this type of setup. The hanging vista setup, it keeps all the cg right in the middle gps in the back and the camera in the front, so this one has a better cg setup. In my opinion, this one is a little more spaced out but it's nice that they do. The all in one on the crocodile and that's the new hd version of that flight controller, which we're going to talk about coming up, but this one has a little higher kv motors on here, the 1404 3000 kv and on the website. Right now it says 3. 800 kv, so what that means for you is that you're going to get a little less flight time flying a higher kb, but you're going to get more power.
So, if you're looking for this one, in particular as a freestyle, four inch um for sending it up the mountain for doing light freestyle with some distance and some gps on on the back to to bring you back home. If you have a problem or you're, you fly into an area where you have a receiver loss it's, not as likely to have a receiver loss with the crossfire nano on board and that's. Why? I recommend that all these companies send me the crossfire nano on board, because with all my testing and all the places that i flew with these, i never had a problem with losing reception with that particular receiver, and it also depends on where you fly. Where you go so you kind of have to know a little bit where you can get away with and can't get away with with the crossfire system. Now, in the back, we have lots of tpu on board. This one has an extension off the back, which is kind of neat. It has the immortal t mount back here. The gps is sitting at the very back and there is a little bit of movement back here, but it has two attachment points on the standoffs back here and this design in particular, i had an issue with the. The cable is a little bit tight back here and it somehow got pulled and this unplugged so that's one thing to look out for on this design.
I also like the longer extended antenna on the back here. This one is working out. Pretty well gives you plenty of clearance and they also use the full size, vista camera, which again i prefer over the nebula or the nebula v2. But this one was great for freestyle. The 850 was getting me upwards of seven to ten minutes flight time and the 3000 again was getting me over 20 minutes in my more punchy flight. So it was getting me around 16 minutes, so the 4sp 3000 again is the one to go for in this setup, but i like that they used a little stronger power system on this one. As far as the esc's are concerned, running 4s at 35, amp, 4. 1 esc's is, is no problem here so somewhere somewhere in the middle of the bunch. I would rate this one out of all four of these all right, guys now, it's time to talk about the diatone roma f4 long range, 4s, quad versus some of the other ones released by the other companies out there. So right away the thing that i noticed about this one is: it looks really cleanly designed. It has three millimeter replaceable arms and, in my opinion, diatone has some of the best quality 3k carbon fiber out there. They also did not choose to use a lot of tpu on theirs. They don't have tpu bumpers on the outside edges like iflight, and the flywoo frames did back here, that's kind of nice that they chose to put the additional tpu on there.
It will add a little bit of extra weight, but in the long run, it'll save these arms if you land around concrete, which is kind of nice, but this quality carbon fiber is better than the gap rc. In my opinion, it's better than the flywoo, they have nice beveled edges all the way around here on theirs, and even though this one's a little bit thicker and more durable again, i think diatone has the best quality carbon fiber. They also use four inch hq props on these, which turned out to have a really great tune on board, even better than i'd say the flywheel explorer, so they really nailed theirs and diatone waited around for everyone else to come out with their four inch and all These were out and released, and then here comes diatone at the end of the pack and they they had a really nice solid release. I had zero issues with this one flying now. The big thing about this one versus some of the other ones that you're looking at right here. All of these use the full size vista camera, which i do prefer and a lot of times if i'm flying and cruising i'm just recording what's coming out of the 50 megabit dji dvr, it looks great. It almost looks like an action. Cam. These days looks very, very nice, and it just has that pixel blur over the screen instead of that static on the screen like shark bite.
So i prefer dji digital over shark bite still at this point from the reviews that i've seen, because, if i'm recording dvr only i just don't want that static on the screen like the old school analog anymore, um, the the pixel blur is a little less noticeable, But this one looks so much like the dave c fpv frame that it's almost scary. It is a different top plate and it's actually a much longer body which will give us a little more weight, but allow you to get a much larger battery on this one. So you can actually run something as large as a 4s 1300 on this one with an action camera up front and they give you two different style mounts up front for this one as well: tpu mounts that come along with this one, so they have a two Up stack here: backseat cadx vista with the nebula v2 up front, and we have 30 amp esc's on this one. So this one in my opinion, will be a little more reliable than the power system on the flywheel running 4s 13 amp esc's versus 30 amp esc's um, and again that the iflight had 30 with 35 amp ese. So this one has a little more beasty stack on board. We also have the mamba f4, just above that running betaflight with full osd. It gives you gps, longitude latitude home arrow and all that good stuff. Now, in the dji display in your goggles and if you don't want to run dji most of these quads do actually give you an analog choice, which is nice.
So the analog versions of these quads come in under 200., and this one in particular, is a little cheaper than some of the others sitting back there. This one comes in at 279 and these are still up for pre order, they're still so new on the bottom. Here we have my tbs nano and there is no external buzzer on this one and that's, where i think that this design has dropped a little bit in my overall score, because if you're going to do a long range explorer quad, you need to have an external Buzzer, if you're running this battery right here, the the 4sp 3000, if you crash really hard this battery is coming off and that little tiny xt30 connector is not going to keep it on there when the weight of this battery flies off. So you need to have an external buzzer. This little guy will beep for about two days. It has its own little battery, just above it and to get bar c crocodile has the largest of the bunch and the loudest buzzer out of all these. So the flywheel explorer also has an external buzzer with a button on there to turn it on or off, and every time you unplug these quads. You have to press that little button, which is kind of annoying but great for if your battery flies off in the field. So a little couple points off for this one, not having an external buzzer.
You could always add one on there for about. I think they're like three to five bucks they're, not super expensive anymore, but this one again, though, gets a little higher score for, but the tune on here was good. I, like the long bed on here that traditional long bed is great for a little bit larger battery. If you choose to experiment and do that, that's really great and the hq props on here were super ultra smooth. This one is also running 1404 motors, which is the trend for this craze 1404 mamba series, 3000 kv motors so somewhere in the higher end of the kv. So it's going to give you a little less flight time around i'd say six to nine minutes on an 850 and just under 20 minutes with my 4sp 3000 gap rc battery. So this one's doing pretty good, but did have a couple points off for just a few things in comparison to the others and, last but not least, the gap rc baby croc. This one ended up being one of my favorites in this bunch and before i even really dive into this, i got to tell you that this one scores the highest on my list and we're going to talk about the reasons why, right now, this one has replaceable Arms, it does have the dead cat style. I wish that the front arms were a little flatter across the front. They are extended just a little bit, but they use 20 amp ese's on here replaceable.
This is the aio stack. It is dead center of the stack. So i think this one has the best cg setup, the hanging vista just above the flight controller, a few millimeters of space between those two bolts, and we also have the external buzzer back here, which is the largest out of the bunch which chirps the loudest. We have a very solid tpu mount in the back right here, probably the best designed tpu mount. It gives you a few different options back here. You have two posts back here for if you're, using an xm plus antenna mount you get some posts along with that. You can put your immortal t up front as well. If you're running the tbs nano receiver, you can put that inside, you could do it in the back or the front a lot of these designs kind of have it up front a couple of them. Have it in the back just depends on where you think it's the best, i think it's, typically the best running up front, so either direction you turn you always have a clear path to the quad and when you're flying long range a lot of times, the best Idea is to keep a nice line of sight between your receiver and your radio, no matter where you're flying so the further you fly out. Typically, you fly a little bit higher as you go. If you dip down behind stuff and get really low way out, there's a couple things that can happen, you can lose video and you can lose reception.
But if you have this set up properly in betaflight, your quad should level out automatically and go into gps return home fail safe. So you want to make sure that you field test that first and absolutely make sure that it's not dropping when it does fail safe, because it's default set to drop and none of these came set up out of the box. I i think that the flywoo explorer was the only one actually that that came set up gps out of the box. I just added my switches there, and things were working now on this one. This one was the lightest of the bunch as well, so this one scored in with a lower, buy and fly weight without the battery, and their motors are the 1404 2750 kv motors, which is the lowest of the bunch, with the exception of the flywheel explorer, and I have to say that i don't know the reliability of the nin motors. I know they're pretty high quality, but i have to tell you that these speed x motors, i haven't, had a problem with and i've been flying gap rc for well over five years now and i've never had a quality issue. With these motors they did not put tpu bumpers on the outside of these arms. These arms are a little bit thinner than some of the other ones, and i believe these are running in at about 2.5 millimeters, so they are fairly light.
It might have a little bit less durability factor but we're talking about long range capability and flight time, and you want the lightest design under 250g, so we're trying to get all the weight off these quads that we possibly can now the other thing about the gps. Mount in the back, this is so robust that we have no problems with the cable having a possibility to get pulled here. You can see that their cable is nicely tucked in here, and it has no chance of coming out, and that was a that's a bit of a problem on this one. You can see how long this cable is extended out back here, that that's an issue and with the diatone they have it nicely tucked in there no chance of getting out and the flywheel explorer. Has it completely covered up and that's good and bad in a way because you couldn't see if your cable was wiggling out, but when you load up the quad you'll notice that you have no gps's so no satellites coming through? So you just want to make sure that those stay nicely tucked in and again i just love the open frame design here that we have plenty of room inside this frame for adding extra things. If we want to plenty of space to add in your receiver there front and back and for me, this flight controller is very simple. I like that it's, actually an aio stack, meaning it's, just one stack here, it's all in one, so esc's and flight controller.
All in one there on that 20 by 20, mount that is pretty fantastic. You also have a 16 by 16 mount option just inside that mount. If you choose to do that, we have the capacitor back here and a total of six standoffs, and this is a pretty quick plate to release the top. If you want to get to it, it has six bolts to release that top plate, and this one has a decent sized truck bed on it as well. You can still get an action camera up front with an 850 or that 3000 milliamp battery on there. I didn't have any problems and again we have that extended caddux vista antenna on the back and that's the momota antenna from gap rc with left hand circular polarized and keep in mind guys that dji is always left hand circular polarized. So you want the same for your goggles and your quad, the same style antennas, but also this one came in with a great tune and the camera that i prefer on here. The full size, codex vista camera and this quad was getting me a long flight time with the 850 i'm getting above 10 minutes flight time with the 2750 kv motors and this flight controller, esc combo, so that's that's, something to be said a little bit longer flight Time and with the 4sp 3000 milliamp battery i'm, getting above 25 minutes on my flight time at my lowest throttle input.
So this is the clear winner as far as the flight time is concerned, as well, so let's go ahead and we'll do a quick weigh in and then i'll give you my final opinion and winner of all four of these quads, all right, guys, we're starting out The way in with the diatone roma f4 167 grams with the 4s battery 850 263. Again, if you want to get it under 250, you have to use the 650 battery and the 4sp 3000 that's going to get you an upwards of 370 grams for super long range flights, 167 grams, not bad, very competitive weight for this class of quads 180. On this x frame version, but remember they do make a dead cat version for the chimera. 4. 181 grams alone, with an 850 275 276 with the 4sp 382 grams it's a little bit heavier than the roma f4. Now the fly will explore 170 67 grams. So these two are weighing in almost the same here: 167 168. This one might be just a little like a gram lighter 167 and now, with an 850 we're. Looking at 262, now with the 4sp 3000 368.. Now the baby crocodile from gap, rc 160 grams lightest of the bunch now with the 850 it's, going to get you up to 255, almost under 250 grams with an 850, not bad now with the 4sp 3000, 361, so lightest out of the bunch again with any Of the different batteries and the quad by itself, all right guys, we're finally down to the moment of truth here with this shootout and i'm, going to be totally honest with you guys, because that's, why you watch reviews and that's what you want to know.
There are a lot of factors that come into play here when i'm, judging a set of quads such as this now um, i fight kind of fell in, in my opinion, to the bottom of the pack, because they sent me the sort of more freestyle version of This and that's not their fault, but for long range. I want that dead cat style for my cruiser, so they're they're, probably at the bottom of the pack, very closely followed by the flywheel long range explorer, mainly because of reliability factors with the goku. I think the goku maybe be a little more reliable, but but again i didn't have any problems with mine, so you know take that with a grain of salt there's other guys out. There who've had some issues and i'm trying to contact flywoo for for support. For those, i think they are up in the top frame design, with the dave c fpv dead cat style under 250 g frame. I think that thing is is absolutely fantastic and it's just one of those ones. I could look at for a while uh it just it's beautiful now. Out of these two i actually like die tones better. This frame just looks really really nice really nice, so aesthetics wise. I like this one better, but dave c was the original on this design. So props out to dave c for that, so so far we're, you know number four three and it boils down to choosing between the roma f4 and the baby, croc and there's only slight reasons why i would choose this one over this one i mean if we Were gon na get in my van today and go out for a long range session together somewhere and i had to choose between these two quads to fly out on the open beach or in the mountains in any long range condition? Can you guys guess which one i'm gon na go for for the number one out of these two, and it boils down to these last two and my my clear choice out of these two is the baby croc now.
Why is that? Well, a few reasons number one it is lighter. They chose to use 2750 kv motors versus the 3000 kv motors uh on this one. Now you might be able to get 2750 kv for the rom, f4, i'm, not sure, but i'm sure they have some available from dietone, but this one as it is, comes with 3000. So this one came with the lower kv and when you're flying long range, you want the lower kv that you can get away with same thing on seven inch. I prefer, like 1650 kv and blow on the larger seven inch series motors now. This one also had not only was it the lightest out of the bunch and the lowest kv motors. It also had an external buzzer back here and the most solid tpu mount in the back and if you're going to fly long range, you got to have an external buzzer on there and gap rc and flywoo. Then they know what's up with that for long range. The long range guys even on the wings, a lot of times we use these. If you have a serious setup and you don't want to lose it if it falls down the side of a mountain somewhere battery flies off. You got to have that on there that's. Just really important, so i think flight time lightweight external buzzer and my preferred camera on here. This is the cadex vista, full size camera, and these two came with lens protectors.
This one sticks out just a little bit, even though it's got that front bumper on the front protecting camera, it does stick out just a tiny little bit there, as you can see so here we have full protection. Tpu sidewalls we've got replaceable arms and really the only thing that bothers me about this one. Is it just they're, just a little bit extended here, i'd like to see that flat across the front that's the only thing there um and this one as far as price was concerned, it's a competitive price it's around 300. If you add the crossfire, nano it's going to get you around 334 or 335., but this one is my choice out of these four and um, for so many good reasons, if we're going on a long range trip, this is the one i would pick up and Take with me – and i just i just love it – it will freestyle, it will do long range and it's, really really open body design as well plenty of room in there it's compared to some of these other ones, there's a lot going on there in a small Amount of space, not a lot of space, to work in right there, so um, you have this hanging stack here which works out really well in its favor. So this is my choice out of these four guys – and this is the end of the shootout um. The tune was also really great on this one as well, so i have to to give it to gab rc for really getting in there and and knowing their market and knowing what we want and putting it all into one quad design.
I think it's fantastic, but thanks again for watching my reviews, guys. My testing and all the time i spend with these quads is so much fun and i really love to get out there and get you guys out there for adventure reviews and make it fun and somewhere scenic too, as well, because that's, what flying, fpv and long Range is all about for me, is going out to these new places and exploring places i've never been before and to show you guys but stay tuned, because we have the eachine fiend coming up and i'll. Let you know how that one scores in comparison to the rest of the four inch squad here, but please do subscribe on the channel guys. I'M justin davis take care and thanks again for watching my four inch showdown on the drumcamps channel.
