The Avions Fairey Junior, also known as the Tipsy Junior was a single-seat light aircraft built in

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 th ...

following

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

Development

The Junior was one of a series of light aircraft designed by and named after E.O.Tips 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. Of wood and fabric construction, it was a conventional, low-wing

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 confi ...

with a

tailwheel undercarriage Conventional landing gear, or tailwheel-type landing gear, is an aircraft An aircraft is a vehicle that is able to fly by gaining support from the air. It counters the force of gravity by using either static lift or by using the dynami ...

and a single seat, open

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

, though there was the option of a bubble hood.''Flight'' Tipsy Junior
/ref> The constant chord wings were almost square ended and the tailplane, fin and rudder also angular. Both completed aircraft were initially powered by the 36 hp (27 kW) Aeronca JAP J-99 engine, later replaced by the more powerful, 62 hp (46 kW)

Walter Mikron The Walter Mikron is a four-cylinder, air-cooled, inverted straight engine for aircraft. Development Developed in Czechoslovakia in the early 1930s, the engine saw limited use in late 1930s and early 1950s. In the 1980s an initial batch of engi ...

2. The Junior, registered ''OO-TIT'', flew for the first time on 30 June 1947 from Gosselies in Belgium.

Operational history

The first Junior was written off after a hard landing in 1948. The second example (construction number J.111, registration ''OO-ULA'') was bought by Fairey and taken to

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

in 1953, where it was registered as ''G-AMVP''. In 1957, it was used in a publicity stunt when Fairey test pilot

Peter Twiss Lionel Peter Twiss (23 July 1921 – 31 August 2011) was a British test pilot who holds the World Air Speed Record as the first man to fly a jet aircraft faster than . Early life He was born in Lindfield, Sussex and lived with his grandmothe ...

landed it on the

aircraft carrier An aircraft carrier is a warship that serves as a seagoing airbase, equipped with a full-length flight deck and facilities for carrying, arming, deploying, and recovering aircraft. Typically, it is the capital ship of a fleet, as it allows a ...

HMS ''Ark Royal''. For part of its time it had the bubble canopy. Rebuilt after a long time in storage following a forced landing in 1993, it flew again late in 2006.The Ultimate Tipsy Site
It had a minor landing accident in 2008 but had a permit to fly until May 2009.CAA G-AMVP
/ref> The Junior did not sell, and the third airframe was cancelled before completion. It was purchased incomplete by Fairey in 1961 and has been under construction in the hands of a number of owners in the intervening years, but never finished.

Specifications

References

Bibliography

* * * * {{Fairey aircraft 1940s Belgian sport aircraft

Junior Junior or Juniors may refer to: Arts and entertainment Music * ''Junior'' (Junior Mance album), 1959 * ''Junior'' (Röyksopp album), 2009 * ''Junior'' (Kaki King album), 2010 * ''Junior'' (LaFontaines album), 2019 Films * ''Junior'' (1994 ...

Low-wing aircraft Single-engined tractor aircraft Aircraft first flown in 1947