The Fairey Primer was a production version of the Avions Fairey Tipsy M tandem seat single-engined basic trainer. Two production aircraft were completed in the late 1940s.
Development
In the 1930s, 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
Bor ...
of
Fairey Aviation
The Fairey Aviation Company Limited was a British aircraft manufacturer of the first half of the 20th century based in Hayes in Middlesex and Heaton Chapel and RAF Ringway in Cheshire. Notable for the design of a number of important military a ...
's Belgian subsidiary,
Avions Fairey produced a series of light aircraft named after him, starting with the
Tipsy S
The Tipsy S.2 was the production version of the Tipsy S, a single seat, low wing sports monoplane designed by Ernest Oscar Tips in Belgium in the mid-1930s. It was produced in both the Belgium and the UK.
Background
Avions Fairey, the Fairey Avi ...
. These aircraft were not built by Fairey Aviation. The last to emerge before the
Occupation of Belgium
Occupation commonly refers to:
*Occupation (human activity), or job, one's role in society, often a regular activity performed for payment
*Occupation (protest), political demonstration by holding public or symbolic spaces
*Military occupation, th ...
in 1940 was the Tipsy M ''
ab initio
''Ab initio'' ( ) is a Latin term meaning "from the beginning" and is derived from the Latin ''ab'' ("from") + ''initio'', ablative singular of ''initium'' ("beginning").
Etymology
Circa 1600, from Latin, literally "from the beginning", from ab ...
'' trainer. Post war, the parent company decided, uniquely to produce this aircraft,
calling it the Fairey Primer.
Only one Tipsy M had been produced in Belgium and this became the Primer prototype.
The Primer was a conventional single-engined, low-winged monoplane, constructed of welded metal tubes with wood in subsidiary structures like ribs and stringers, all fabric covered. The wings were quite symmetrically tapered and carried manually operated flaps across the centre section. Mild
dihedral began outside the centre section. Each mainwheel, equipped with brakes was mounted on a single leg fixed at the end of the centre section. On the prototype the wheels were spatted, but these were removed on production aircraft. There was a small tailwheel below the fin. The rudder was horn balanced and the starboard elevator carried a trim tab.
The enclosed tandem dual control cockpits merged into a raised decking behind them, giving the aircraft a smooth but slightly humped look. Both cockpits were over the wing. The engines used by Primers, the 145 hp (108 kW)
de Havilland Gipsy Major
The de Havilland Gipsy Major or Gipsy IIIA is a four-cylinder, air-cooled, inverted inline engine used in a variety of light aircraft produced in the 1930s, including the famous Tiger Moth biplane. Many Gipsy Major engines still power vintag ...
10 and the 155 hp (116 kW)
Blackburn Cirrus Major
The Blackburn Cirrus Major is a British, inline-four aircraft engine that was developed in the late 1930s.
Design and development
The Blackburn Cirrus Major started life as a continued evolution of the original Cirrus and Hermes series of air ...
3 were inverted in-line engines and ran in similar cowlings.
Operational history
The Tipsy M, registered ''OO-POM'' and Gipsy powered, first flew at Avions Fairey's works at
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 ...
about 1938 and it visited the parent company's works in England in June 1939. The Gosselies factory was destroyed by bombing on 5 May 1940
and at about that time all drawings and jigs for the aircraft were destroyed,
deliberately or not. Before the German invasion in May 1940 the machine was taken apart and shipped to England, probably in
September or October 1939;
certainly it flew from Fairey Aviation's
Great West Aerodrome
The Great West Aerodrome, also known as Harmondsworth Aerodrome or Heathrow Aerodrome, was a grass airfield, operational between 1930 and 1944. It was on the southeast edge of the hamlet of Heathrow, in the parish of Harmondsworth. The Fairey Av ...
(the site now covered by London Heathrow Airport) for five months after November 1940. It was then used as a company hack until September 1941, when it was put into store. Shortly after the war ''OO-POM'' went back to Belgium for small modifications at Fairey's suggestion; they then took over the Tipsy M with the aim of producing it under licence. Early in 1948, it was flying from
White Waltham
White Waltham is a village and civil parish, west of Maidenhead, in the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead in Berkshire, England. It is crossed briefly by the M4 motorway, which along with the Great Western Main Line and all other roa ...
, still bearing its Belgian registration.
The following year it received a UK registration (''G-AKSX''), but seems only to have flown with the experimental number ''G-6-1''. It spent a period of assessment with service pilots at the
Aeroplane and Armament Experimental Establishment
The Aeroplane and Armament Experimental Establishment (A&AEE) was a research facility for British military aviation from 1918 to 1992. Established at Martlesham Heath, Suffolk, the unit moved in 1939 to Boscombe Down, Wiltshire, where its wo ...
,
Boscombe Down
MoD Boscombe Down ' is the home of a military aircraft testing site, on the southeastern outskirts of the town of Amesbury, Wiltshire, England. The site is managed by QinetiQ, the private defence company created as part of the breakup of the Def ...
.
When returned from Boscombe Down, the Primer prototype had to be stripped down in order to recreate the lost drawings and jigs.
The engine and some other parts were used to build the first production aircraft,
though the CAA records ''G-AKSX'' as being sold abroad in Aug 1948; whether in flying condition or not is not noted. Fairey had intended to produce a run of ten, but only built two.
The first of these, ''G-ALBL'', gained its certificate of airworthiness in October 1948. Initially it had the Gipsy engine but this was later replaced by the Cirrus.
It was dismantled in 1949;
the CAA records it as destroyed in 1953. The second production aircraft, ''G-ALEW'' used this powerplant from the start, and was assessed against the
de Havilland Chipmunk at Boscombe Down. The last of the line, it was dismantled in 1951.
Specifications (Gipsy Major 10)
References
;Notes
;Bibliography
*
{{Fairey aircraft
1940s British military trainer aircraft
Primer
Primer may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Films
* ''Primer'' (film), a 2004 feature film written and directed by Shane Carruth
* ''Primer'' (video), a documentary about the funk band Living Colour
Literature
* Primer (textbook), a t ...
Aircraft first flown in 1938
Low-wing aircraft
M
Single-engined tractor aircraft