Lieutenant-Commander Ian Normand, who had died aged 92, flew fighter-bombers in the Korean War and as a naval aero-engineer and test pilot was one of the first men to fly at over 1,000 mph.
Normand was flying the Seafire Mark 47, the ultimate and definitive version of the famous Spitfire, at the Navy’s Operational Flying School when the Korean War broke out. Progressing to the Hawker Seafury, the last propeller-driven fighter-bomber in Navy and one of the fastest production single reciprocating engine aircraft ever built, Normand learned aerial combat, bombing and deck landing in the carrier Triumph in the English Channel. He joined 804 Naval Air Squadron in the carrier Glory when shewas on her third patrol off Korea. There the Fleet Air Arm had reached pitch perfection: each pilot sometimes flew 3 and even 4 sorties a day, serviceability was extremely high, and aircraft landed on and took off at half minute intervals. Normand was rated as an exceptional pilot and when Glory was relieved after two more patrols, he was one of the pilots selected to take his experience to the carrier Ocean and 802 Naval Air Squadron. Between March and November 1952 Normand flew 150 sorties over North Korea against bridges, tanks, and artillery positions. On April 22, on his afternoon sortie, Normand lost power but nursed his aircraft to a safe landing on an offshore island: one of the Navy’s highly skilled aero-engineers, he noted professionally in his flying logbook “fuel starvation”.
Patrick Ian Normand always claimed that he was born in prison: in fact, he was born at Fort House, Johannesburg where his father was governor of prisons for the Transvaal. Normand senior had ridden with the Matabeleland Mounted Police on the Jameson Raid of 1896 and had been awarded the DSO at the Siege of Ladysmith, but when he was forced out of office by the Afrikaner government of South Africa, the family returned to Scotland. Apart from a few years when his mother escaped the bitter weather to convalesce in South Africa, young Normand was educated in Britain.
In 1944, when the Admiralty still enjoyed a vision of immortality and was the only service recruiting permanent career officers, Normand passed the examination for special entry into the Navy. After a spell at the naval collage at its wartime home atEaton Hall, in 1945 he started studies at the Royal Naval Engineering College at Keyham, Devonport to specialise as an engineer. His four-year degree course included several months at sea in the carriers Illustrious and Victorious where he gained his Auxiliary Watchkeeping Certificate on steam plants, before subspecialising in aeroengineering. Normand took on his first flight on 24 July 1950 and fly solo after just five hours and 40 minutes’ training.
After Korea, in 1953-55 Normand learned to fly in the jet-engined de Havilland Vampire and the Hawker Sea Hawk and, as a maintenance test pilot, he took delivery of new aircraft from the manufacturer. Then, after a three-month helicopter course, Normand joined the 15th course at the Empire Test Pilot School (‘ETPS’), based at the Royal Aircraft Establishment, Farnborough, On graduation he worked on armaments and flight testing, then tested catapults and arrester gear for aircraft carriers, before beginning a study of reheat orifices in supersonic aircraft. Much of this later work was done in the Fairey Delta 2, which with its revolutionary drop-nose and swept-back wing was a forerunner of Concorde. Only three years before, Lieutenant-Commander Peter Twiss had smashed the world air speed record in the FD2, and a casual entry, “famil” (familiarisation), in Normand’s flying logbook on July 22, 1959 revealed that he became one of the first half dozen men to follow Twiss and fly at more than 1,000 mph.
Contemporaries regarded Normand’s flying skills as “amazing”, especially after he demonstrated inverted spins in Hawker Hunters.
Other appointments in Normand’s thirty-year naval career included senior air engineer and maintenance testing at RNAS Brawdy in Pembrokeshire and RNAS Abbotsinch, Glasgow, and senior air engineer the teaching staff at RNEC Manadon. In 1966-69, he returned to RAE Farnborough as a tutor at the Empire Test Pilot School, and in 1969-71 he served on exchange at the US Naval Test Pilot School at Patuxent River as head of flight testing. His final appointment was at Boscombe Down where he wrote and amended pilots’ notes, the essential guides on how to fly each type of aircraft.
Normand was awarded the Air Force Cross in 1970, which was presented to him by John Freeman, then UK Ambassador, the British Embassy in Washington DC.
On leaving the Navy, in 1975-76 Normand worked briefly for Chemring Group, best known at the time for the manufacture of ‘chaff’, a defence against radar-guided missile threats to aircraft, where his father-in-law, was a non-executive director, However, commercial life did not suit Normand and soon he joined the Civil Aviation Authority There initially he was responsible for the issue of licences to operators, but in 1980 he became a flight operations inspector, ensuring operational compliance with procedures and the continuing competence of aircraft operators. Required to maintain his pilot’s licence, he would invite friends and family to join him on flights which were often jaunts to Calais or Le Touquet for lunch, returning with duty-free alcohol, or helicopter flights along the Thames. When Normand retired from the CAA in 1989 after a 40-year flying career, he had flown more than 3,000 accident-free hours in 124 different types of aircraft, both fixed wing and rotary.
Normand was a keen rough shooter who often developed lasting friendships with farmers and landowners, and an eager gardener who left a succession of married quarters with beautiful gardens. As a glider pilot he gave much time to teaching others, and, until electronics made home servicing impossible, he would never engage a third party to maintain or repair his cars.
In 1951, he married Mary Bishop, elder daughter of Sir Harold Bishop. She died in 2001 and he married Christine Houseley (née Try): he is survived by two sons and two daughters.
Lt Cdr P I Normand, born July 13, 1927, died June 28, 2020.
© Peter Hore