The Avions Fairey Belfair, also known as the Tipsy Belfair after its designer,
Ernest Oscar Tips
Ernest Oscar Tips (born 2 October 1893 in Tielrode, died 10 March 1978 in Brussels) was a Belgian aircraft designer, who co-founded the Fairey Aviation Company in 1915 and its Belgian subsidiary Avions Fairey in 1931.
Biography
Early days
Bo ...
, was a two-seat light aircraft built in Belgium following World War II.
Design and development
The Belfair was based on the
Tipsy B
The Tipsy B was a small sports two-seat monoplane designed by Ernest Oscar Tips, and built in both Belgium and the UK. A total of 42 was built, and a few are still flying.
Design and development
Avions Fairey, the Fairey Aviation Company's Bel ...
built before the war, but featured a fully enclosed cabin. It was a low-wing
cantilever
A cantilever is a rigid structural element that extends horizontally and is supported at only one end. Typically it extends from a flat vertical surface such as a wall, to which it must be firmly attached. Like other structural elements, a cant ...
monoplane
A monoplane is a fixed-wing aircraft configuration with a single mainplane, in contrast to a biplane or other types of multiplanes, which have multiple planes.
A monoplane has inherently the highest efficiency and lowest drag of any wing con ...
of conventional configuration with exceptionally clean lines. It was fitted with
tailwheel undercarriage
Conventional landing gear, or tailwheel-type landing gear, is an aircraft undercarriage consisting of two main wheels forward of the center of gravity and a small wheel or skid to support the tail.Crane, Dale: ''Dictionary of Aeronautical Term ...
with
spatted mainwheels.
The aircraft boasted splendid performance, twice breaking the world distance record for aircraft in its class (
FAI class 1A - under 500 kg). The first of these flights was made by Albert van Cothem on 21 August 1950 and covered . The second, made by P. Anderson on 3 August 1955 nearly trebled this to . Both records were set in the same aircraft, construction number 533, registration ''OO-TIC''.
Unfortunately, the Belfair was a victim of the glut of light aircraft on the market following World War II. The aircraft was priced at BEF 200,000, when war-surplus
Piper Cub
The Piper J-3 Cub is an American light aircraft that was built between 1938 and 1947 by Piper Aircraft. The aircraft has a simple, lightweight design which gives it good low-speed handling properties and short-field performance. The Cub is P ...
s and similar aircraft were selling for around BEF 30,000. Consequently, although six airframes past the prototype were under construction, only three had been completed when Tips made the decision that the aircraft was simply not commercially viable and sold the remaining airframes "as is". They were purchased by D. Heaton of
Speeton, Yorkshire and completed in the UK, with a further aircraft converted from a prewar
Tipsy Trainer to the same standard.
[Jackson 1988, p. 200.] One of these aircraft (c/n 535, ''G-APIE'', ex OO-TIE) was still flying in 2015, while another (c/n 536, ''G-APOD'') was under restoration as of 2001.
Specifications
See also
Notes
References
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Oliver Holmes photography
{{Fairey aircraft
Single-engined tractor aircraft
1940s Belgian civil utility aircraft
Belfair
Low-wing aircraft
Aircraft first flown in 1946
Belfair