Desmond Norman

Nigel Desmond Norman, (13 August 1929 – 13 November 2002) was an aircraft designer and aviation pioneer.

Returning to England, he was sent to Eton in 1945.

At Eton, he kept a Norton motorbike in town and was given to riding it in school clothes.

He was outstanding at sport, particularly on the rugby field and in the Eton eight, which he stroked at Henley in 1946.

He went straight from Eton into a two-year engineering apprenticeship at the de Havilland Technical School.

Here he met John Britten, whose enthusiasm for aircraft design matched his own.

The two young men also shared a passion for sailing and one of their first joint commissions was to take an old 80 ft ketch across the Atlantic to the Bahamas.

As a national serviceman, he won the Sword of Honour during training, before spending two years in the Royal Air Force as a fighter pilot.

He later joined the Royal Auxiliary Air Force No. 601 Squadron RAF.

Desmond Norman's older brother Mark Annesley Norman (see Norman Baronets) worked for Bristol Siddeley Engines and later for Britten-Norman as sales manager.

Norman was a member of the Royal Yacht Squadron, regularly raced his own designs and designed and built Wavewalker, a two-masted gaff rigged 70 ft schooner, for his family.

In early 1953 John Britten and Desmond Norman designed and had built a 21 ft. Junior Offshore Group sailing boat.

Prior to turning the Britten-Norman partnership into an incorporated company Norman spent almost two years as an export assistant with the Society of British Aerospace Companies.

Norman co-founded Britten-Norman in 1954, was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1970, and served as chairman and managing director of AeroNorTec (1988–2002).

With his longtime friend and business partner John Britten, he also designed, built, and sailed racing yachts, as well as a series of air cushion vehicles and crop spraying equipment.

In 1954, Desmond started Britten-Norman with co-founder John Britten, a fellow de Havilland graduate.

Norman discovered in John Britten a partner who was equally keen to make a career out of aircraft design.

The two men built their first aircraft at Britten's home on the Isle of Wight.

The BN1F was a 36 hp ultra-light aircraft.

The aircraft was a commercial failure, but with a third partner, Jim McMahon, they formed a crop-spraying company, Crop Culture (Aerial) Ltd. It was to be Norman's first big success.

The reason was a revolutionary rotary atomiser, whose potential in aerial work Norman had recognised and set about developing.

Desmond Norman recalled that Britten-Norman came about as an aircraft manufacturer because of his and John Britten's experiences as agricultural operators.

The partnership began by converting Tiger Moths for export to New Zealand and later moved on to develop spraying equipment.

Edward Bals designed the first Micronair rotary atomiser suitable for mounting on an aircraft but, rather than get involved with aircraft, he encouraged Britten-Norman Limited and Jim McMahon to set up Micronair Limited.

At one time Britten-Norman operated 80 agricultural aircraft and the need to consider replacement equipment led to an association with Leyland Snow of Texas.

The company acquired a one-third share in the Snow Aeronautical Corp. equity and a lot of the Snow Commander's development had taken place before the whole enterprise was sold to North American Rockwell.

The aircraft became the Rockwell Thrush Commander.

The success of the crop spraying operations funded the realisation of Britten and Norman's dream: to design and build an aeroplane.

At the time, there was no other aircraft that filled its remit, and Norman foresaw the market potential of an island-hopping passenger plane.

In 1960 Britten-Norman developed the early Cushioncraft with support from Elders and Fyffes Ltd. to look at methods of transporting banana crop from plantations in Southern Cameroons.

Cushioncraft Ltd was formed out of the hovercraft division of Britten-Norman.

In 1963 Norman and Britten sold their share of Crop Culture to other members of the Board to concentrate their efforts on production of the Britten-Norman Islander.

A prototype, G-ATCT, was completed within nine months and made its maiden flight in June 1965.

Production was centred at Bembridge, Isle of Wight, United Kingdom.

Britten-Norman Ltd had a shareholding in Hovertravel Ltd (now the world's oldest hovercraft transport company), of which Norman was a director since its inception in 1965.

In 1966 the British Hovercraft Corporation Ltd took a 20% shareholding.

He died of a heart attack at age 73 in 2002.

Norman's grandfather was Sir Henry Norman, 1st Baronet, a Liberal politician, and his father was aviator and engineer Sir Nigel Norman, 2nd Baronet.

The son of Nigel Norman, he attended Twyford School in Winchester, before being evacuated to the United States during the Second World War.

There, he allegedly had a fight with the young Ted Kennedy.