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 and had a length of 4.56 m (15.0 ft), a span of 6.0 m (19.7 ft) and a range of 400 km (249 mi), extendable with tip tanks to 720 km (447 mi). The aircraft has a welded steel tube fuselage and rudder with a wooden and fabric covered wing, tailplane and elevator. It weighs 165 kg without an engine. Early aircraft were equipped with a 40 hp Stamo Volkswagen air-cooled engine with later types using either 40 hp Pollman-Hepu or 45 hp Stark Stamo engines. More recently the 85 hp (63 kW) Jabiru 2200 engine has been used. For more details, click here, and here. For the Nipper website, click here.
