Career
He saw action as a pilot in the First World War in the Royal Naval Air Service, qualifying on 5 June 1915 as Flight Sub-Lieutenant at the Grahame-White Flying School at Hendon. He served on the East Coast patrol "chasing Zeppelins", flying, among other aircraft, the Curtiss Reconnaissance Biplane and Kangaroo bomber. On 22 July 1916 he was forced to land due to thick mist in the Vale of York, he did so near Northallerton without incident but crashed when attempting to take off after the fog cleared.
The aircraft overturned and was badly damaged as a result.
He was injured in service in the weeks before October 1916. At the end of the war, he was stationed with the newly formed Royal Air Force at Fern Hill, as Acting Major commanding 132 Squadron.
Norman managed the Royal Air Force Reserve training school at Brough Aerodrome from January 1924 to 1940, where many Royal Air Force pilots and foreign airmen were trained - over 10,000 pilots all told. Among the celebrities who learned to fly there was The Honorary Mrs Victor Bruce, who then flew around the world in her Blackburn Bluebird, only eight weeks after completing her training.
Norman served as a director of from 1920 to 1950, and Joint Managing Director from 1949.
I
In 1940, Robert Blackburn asked Norman to take charge of Fairey Swordfish production at the Sherburn-in-Elmet factory near Leeds, and having returned to Brough in 1943, he was in full charge of all Blackburn factories in Yorkshire from 1944.
