A glorious treasure trove of Dave Higgins’ glider drawings & other noteworthy flyable stuff.
Be sure to also visit Old School Gliders Reunion for a dusty warehouse of time proven vintage Glider Projects, Drawings and other Documents.
Sweepette-Ette 14 Mk. II Catapult Launched Glider Note: This link will take you to a separate Webpage.
The Flip DT (Dethermalizer) System Note: This link will take you to a separate Webpage.
Webmaster’s Note: Notice the notation *FP* in the first two glider names in Dave’s list at left. FP stands for FLAT PLATE. This greatly simplifies the construction. Instead of sanding an airfoil shape into the wing, you simply use a flat piece of balsa, the thickness of which is called out on the drawing. As a relatively newcomer to aeromodeling, this greatly encourages modelers like me and reduces my reluctance to make one of Dave’s *FP* designs. Despite the flat wing—these gliders fly great!
Notice the notation “FP” in the name of this glider. FP stands for FLAT PLATE. This means that the wing is made out of a flat piece of standard balsawood strip and that virtually no sanding for an airfoil is needed. Because of this it is a great first time glider build. So later on you can shoot for the more difficult task of sanding an airfoil. 😏
This glider takes around 2 or 3 hours to build, although one of our SAM 8 club members spent about 40 hours on his and it didn’t fly worth a hoot!
Last Saturday our SAM 8 club had a FP-11 mass launch contest at Meadowbrook Farms and we had around 10 participants, so it was great to see all those gliders flying at the same time. The guy who won the contest spent 1 hour building two FP-11 gliders.
FP-11 MK II Catapult Glider
Designed and Drawn by Dave Higgins 10-18- 2020
Download the FP-11 MK. II Catapult Glider CAD Drawing here:
Download the FP-11 MK. II Catapult Glider Building and Flying Instructions here:
BEAMSBOX FP Catapult Glider
Designed and Drawn by Dave Higgins 1-28- 2015
The BEAMSBOX FP Catapult Glider
Notice the notation “FP” in the name of this glider. FP stands for FLAT PLATE. This means that the wing is made out of a flat piece of standard balsawood strip and that virtually no sanding for an airfoil is needed. Because of this it is a great first time glider build. So later on you can shoot for the more difficult task of sanding an airfoil. 😏
Davie Higgins writes, “As far as the BEAMSBOX FP glider is concerned, here is some background information on this cute little glider:”
The BEAMSBOX FP glider evolved or perhaps devolved from John Oldenkamp’s original Lunchbox glider, which appeared as a plan and article in the September, 1975 issue of Model Airplane News. About 20 years ago I built one of these gliders per the original plan and was impressed with how well it flew, but with my weak arm strength it didn’t get much altitude. I built a second Lunchbox glider with a catapult hook at the front end of the fuselage and a hand hold extension to the aft end of the fuselage. I took this glider to a small field, and after getting it flight trimmed, the glider promptly caught a thermal. After about 3 minutes of slowly climbing and circling in the thermal, it went out-of-sight (O.O.S.) and was never seen again. Recently, I found my original Lunchbox glider and modified it by adding a handhold, catapult hook and falling weight dethermalizer system, similar to the Flip D.T. system, and I’ve had several successful thermal flights resulting in a D.T. descent in a fairly small field.
Click here to go to the section featuring the original 8″ LUNCHBOX Hand Launch Glider designed by John Oldenkamp. You will be taken to this section on the web page Old School Gliders Reunion.
BEAMSBOX FP Kits
Here Dave talks about his experience making BEAMSBOX FP Kits for middle school kids:
About five years ago I needed an easy to build indoor catapult glider kit for middle school kids, but I couldn’t find anything on any of the model airplane kit websites that was acceptable, either in price or ease of construction.
I remembered how well the Lunchbox glider flew and decided to simplify the original Lunchbox design by making the wing out of 1/32” thick medium weight balsa instead of the airfoil shaped 3/32” thick light weight balsa of the original glider. Also, the “V” dihedral of the original Lunchbox glider was replaced with simple tip dihedral. I named this simplified glider the BEAMSBOX FP. The FP stands for Flat Plate.
The BEAMS in BEAMSBOX could signify that this glider climbs easily above the beams in the gymnasium where we fly, but in reality it reflects the name of the indoor free flight club that got me back into aero-modeling.
Over the last 5 years we’ve had around 100 students and adults successfully build and fly the BEAMSBOX FP catapult glider. The kids just love flying this glider. We took one of these gliders out to the baseball field and it soon caught a thermal and flew the entire length of the field before falling out of the lift and landing on the grass next to the tree line.
Not bad for a flat plate airfoil.
BEAMS INDOOR GLIDER
Designed and Drawn by Dave Higgins 4-17-2014
The BEAMS INDOOR GLIDER
BEAMSBOX 11.3 Catapult Glider
Designed and Drawn by Dave Higgins 11-28-2012
Download and print the BEAMSBOX 11.3 Catapult Glider here.
Jack Vetter is shown holding his
BEAMSBOX 11.3 Cat Glider
DRIFTER CATAPULT GLIDER
Designed by Bob Deshields — Original Drawing by Mike Palbang — CAD Dwg. by Davide Higgins 5/4/2012
The DRIFTER CATAPULT GLIDER
KC'S FREE FLIGHT AËROMODELLING SITE 