It was built in Belgium by Avions Fairey and under licence in the UK by Aero Engines Ltd of Bristol.

[3] The Tipsy S.2 was a wooden framed machine, covered with a mixture of plywood and canvas.

Stressed plywood skin was used from the main spar forward, with the rest of the wing fabric covered over wooden ribs.

Differential ailerons extended from mid span to the tips; because they continued the trailing edge curvature and their hinge had to be straight though strongly forward swept, the chord of these ailerons initially increased outwards, decreasing rapidly to the tips.

[1] The fabric covered rudder was rounded, horn balanced and mounted on a forward leaning hinge.

The Tipsy S prototype began flying with an 11 hp (8 kW) Douglas Sprite, making its first flight on 11 May 1935 at the Avions Fairey field at Gosselies.

Several were exported, destinations including France, Indonesia, Poland, Spain, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK.

[4] These other two are now both static museum exhibits: SE-AFT, ex-OO-ASC is at the Flygmuseum at Sloinge, Sweden,[5] and OO-ASB, ex-G-AFVH is painted up as the prototype Tipsy S OO-TIP at the Royal Museum of the Armed Forces and Military History, Brussels.

[6] The single Polish S.2 Tipsy served as the basis for the PWS-36 plane designed for the Podlaska Wytwórnia Samolotów by three recent graduates of Lwów University of Science.