WingHopper · Designer · Guide · Sections · Reef · Methods · Pricing · FAQ
WingHopper is a parametric foil design tool that runs in your browser. You shape a hydrofoil front wing or stabilizer by dragging its planform curves and setting span, sweep, twist and dihedral, then blend airfoil sections along the span. Underneath is a CAD model that builds fair surfaces for rendering, 3D printing, CNC and mold making. No CAD software required.
They come from vortex-lattice and beam models, checked against exact lifting-line solutions. They don't model viscous drag, stall, cavitation or slam loads. Use them as design guidance, with your own engineering judgment. Every calculation, with its assumptions and limits, is on the Methods page.
Designing a wing, checking it, and building it. Shape the wing, read its area, aspect ratio and ride speeds as you go, then export a 3D file to print or machine, a mold to laminate in, or an XFLR5 file to analyse it further.
It is built for hydrofoils: front wings and stabilizers for wing foiling, kitefoiling, surf, downwind, pump and eFoil. The geometry is general, so it works for other wings that mirror about a centerline, such as a model aircraft wing. Surf fins live on its sister site, FinHopper.
The wing as STL or STEP. For building it: a print kit (shell and core STLs for your slicer), a core STEP, a two-part female mold tool (STEP) and ply cut files (DXF, CSV and a 1:1 printable pattern). For analysis: XFLR5 .xml.
Browsing is free and needs no account: open any wing on the reef in 3D and read its numbers. A free account lets you shape, save and export STL of simple wings. Pro adds STEP, the print kit, mold tooling, ply cut files, XFLR5 export, STL of advanced wings and the Performance view. See Pricing for the current plans.
Yes. Publish a wing and it gets its own link, and public wings appear on the reef. Anyone can open a shared wing in 3D, and forking one gives you your own copy to change, with credit back to the original designer.
Yes. Open Reef, then the Yours tab, and use Import WingHopper v1 wing to open the .json you saved from the old site's Export Parameter Values menu. Your wing is rebuilt from its original settings: span, chords, sweep, planform curves, twist and dihedral. If a file comes from an older version of the old site, it loads as a close approximation and tells you how many shape settings did not carry over, so you know what to re-tune. Viewing a wing needs no account. Importing, editing, saving and STL export are free with a free account.
The 3D view in the browser sometimes has trouble drawing the surfaces. The exported wing is fair.
Modeling a wing from scratch takes a lot of time, and things like twist and trailing edge thickness are hard to get right without a parametric model. WingHopper is that parametric model.
Export it. Printing or CNCing a core and laminating over it is the simplest and quickest way to get a wing in the water.
Yes. Open Sections and upload a .dat straight from your machine. Selig and Lednicer files both work, and so does a file with no name line. Wings are modelled with multiple sections across the span, so each one can suit the flow where it sits. A .dat is only coordinates, so after the upload WingHopper checks the shape against its catalog and offers any foil that matches, so you get its polars. You can find airfoil .dat files on airfoiltools.com.
Sorry about that. Tell me what you were doing with the feedback button in the corner, or email zach@winghopper.com. I read every one.