The Tipsy Nipper T.66 is an

aerobatic Aerobatics is the practice of flying maneuvers involving aircraft attitudes that are not used in conventional passenger-carrying flights. The term is a portmanteau of "aerial" and "acrobatics". Aerobatics are performed in aeroplanes and glide ...

light aircraft A light aircraft is an aircraft that has a maximum gross takeoff weight of or less.Crane, Dale: ''Dictionary of Aeronautical Terms, third edition'', page 308. Aviation Supplies & Academics, 1997. Light aircraft are used as utility aircraft co ...

, developed in 1952 by

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 ...

Avions Fairey Avions Fairey was the Belgian-based subsidiary of the British Fairey Aviation that built aircraft for the Belgian government. It subsequently separated from the UK parent and became SONACA. History In the late 1920s, the ''Aéronautique Mili ...

Gosselies Gosselies ( wa, Gochliye) is a town of Wallonia and a district of the municipality of Charleroi, located in the province of Hainaut, Belgium. Located in the north of Charleroi, it was a city and a municipality of its own before the merger of the ...

Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to ...

. It was designed to be easy to fly, cheap to buy and cheap to maintain. It was designed for both factory production and homebuild. "Nipper" was the nickname of Ernest Tips' first grandchild. The first aircraft flew on 12 December 1957, with test pilot Bernard Neefs. It featured an open

cockpit A cockpit or flight deck is the area, usually near the front of an aircraft or spacecraft, from which a pilot controls the aircraft. The cockpit of an aircraft contains flight instruments on an instrument panel, and the controls that e ...

and had a length of , a span of and a range of , extendable with tip tanks to .

Design and development

The aircraft has a welded steel tube

fuselage The fuselage (; from the French ''fuselé'' "spindle-shaped") is an aircraft's main body section. It holds crew, passengers, or cargo. In single-engine aircraft, it will usually contain an engine as well, although in some amphibious aircraft t ...

and

rudder A rudder is a primary control surface used to steer a ship, boat, submarine, hovercraft, aircraft, or other vehicle that moves through a fluid medium (generally air or water). On an aircraft the rudder is used primarily to counter adve ...

with a wooden and fabric covered wing,

tailplane A tailplane, also known as a horizontal stabiliser, is a small lifting surface located on the tail ( empennage) behind the main lifting surfaces of a fixed-wing aircraft as well as other non-fixed-wing aircraft such as helicopters and gyropl ...

and

elevator An elevator or lift is a cable-assisted, hydraulic cylinder-assisted, or roller-track assisted machine that vertically transports people or freight between floors, levels, or decks of a building, vessel, or other structure. They ...

. It weighs 165 kg without an engine. Early aircraft were equipped with a 40 hp Stamo

Volkswagen air-cooled engine The Volkswagen air-cooled engine is an air-cooled, gasoline-fuelled, boxer engine with four horizontally opposed cast-iron cylinders, cast aluminum alloy cylinder heads and pistons, magnesium-alloy crankcase, and forged steel crankshaft and ...

with later types using either 40 hp Pollman-Hepu or 45 hp Stark Stamo engines. More recently the

Jabiru 2200 The Jabiru 2200 is a lightweight naturally aspirated, pushrod four-stroke, flat four, air-cooled aircraft engine produced by Jabiru Aircraft. Design and development The conventional direct-drive engine is fitted with an alternator, silencers, ...

engine has been used.Tacke, Willi; Marino Boric; et al: ''World Directory of Light Aviation 2015–16'', page 120. Flying Pages Europe SARL, 2015. Production was between 1959 and 1961 with

delivering 59 complete aircraft and 78 kits.

stopped production to make capacity available for F-104G Starfighter assembly for the

Belgian Air Force The Belgian Air Component ( nl, Luchtcomponent, french: Composante air) is the air arm of the Belgian Armed Forces, and until January 2002 it was officially known as the Belgian Air Force ( nl, Belgische Luchtmacht; french: Force aérienne belg ...

. During 1962 the rights and a large assortment of uncompleted parts were sold to Cobelavia SA -Compagnie Belge d'Aviation, and they assembled 18 Nippers. The type was renamed as the Cobelavia D-158 Nipper. In June 1966 the license was sold to Nipper Aircraft Ltd at

Castle Donington Castle Donington is a market town and civil parish in Leicestershire, England, on the edge of the National Forest and close to East Midlands Airport. History The name 'Donington' means 'farm/settlement connected with Dunna'. Another sugge ...

and new Mk.III aircraft were built for them by

Slingsby Sailplanes Slingsby Aviation was a British aircraft manufacturer based in Kirkbymoorside, North Yorkshire, England. The company was founded to design and build gliders and sailplanes. From the early 1930s to around 1970 it built over 50% of all British c ...

Kirkbymoorside Kirkbymoorside () is a market town and civil parish in the Ryedale district in North Yorkshire, England. It is north of York, It is also midway between Pickering and Helmsley, on the edge of the North York Moors National Park. It had a populat ...

. Production was ended by the fire at Slingsby's in late 1968 and the subsequent bankruptcy. Several partly constructed Nippers were transferred to Castle Donington. In May 1971 Nipper Aircraft Ltd. stopped work and sold the license to a company called Nipper Kits and Components, a company that helps

home builders A home, or domicile, is a space used as a permanent or semi-permanent residence for one or many humans, and sometimes various companion animals. It is a fully or semi sheltered space and can have both interior and exterior aspects to it. H ...

with parts and plans.Bayerl, Robby; Martin Berkemeier; et al: ''World Directory of Leisure Aviation 2011–12'', page 113. WDLA UK, Lancaster UK, 2011.

Operational history

In 2000, about 45 Nippers were still active, mostly in the UK. In 2010, 34 Nippers were registered with the British

Civil Aviation Authority A civil aviation authority (CAA) is a national or supranational statutory authority that oversees the regulation of civil aviation, including the maintenance of an aircraft register. Role Due to the inherent dangers in the use of flight vehicles, ...

, where as of 2017, 19 remained.

Variants

;Tipsy Nipper T.66 Mk 1 :First production model, powered by a 30 kW (40 hp) Pollman-Hepu engine. Enclosed canopy. ;Tipsy Nipper T.66 Mk 2 :Second production model; as first but powered by a 33.5 kW (45 hp) Stark Stamo engine. ;Nipper Mk III :Slingsby-built for Nipper Aircraft normally with 1500 cc, 33.5 kW (45 hp)

Rollason Ardem Helen Frances Rollason (''née'' Grindley; 11 March 1956 – 9 August 1999) was a British sports journalist and television presenter, who in 1990 became the first female presenter of the BBC's sports programme ''Grandstand''. She was also a re ...

Mk X engines, 32 built. Tip tanks optional. ;Cobelavia D-158 Nipper :Production variant - 18 built

Specification (Mk.2)

References

* * * {{Slingsby aircraft 1950s Belgian civil utility aircraft 1960s British civil utility aircraft

Nipper Nipper (1884 – September 1895) was a dog from Bristol, England, who served as the model for an 1898 painting by Francis Barraud titled ''His Master's Voice''. This image became one of the world's best known trademarks, the famous dog-and-gr ...

Homebuilt aircraft Aerobatic aircraft Single-engined tractor aircraft Mid-wing aircraft Aircraft first flown in 1957