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.

The son of Nigel Norman, he attended Twyford School[3] in Winchester, before being evacuated to the United States during the Second World War.

The two young men also shared a passion for sailing and one of their first joint commissions was to take an old 80 ft (24 m) 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.

The aircraft was a commercial failure, but with a third partner, Jim McMahon, they formed a crop-spraying company, Crop Culture (Aerial) Ltd.

At one time, Britten-Norman operated 80 agricultural aircraft and the need to consider replacement equipment led to an association with Leyland Snow[9] of Texas.

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

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.

In 1960[11] Britten-Norman developed the early Cushioncraft[12] with support from Elders and Fyffes Ltd. to look at methods of transporting banana crop from plantations in Southern Cameroons.

Norman advertised in Flight magazine AeroNorTec's ability to carry out projects right through to compliance with clients' airworthiness certification requirements.

The prototype aircraft, including the turbine version (1T) flying with the National Test Pilots School (Flight Research Inc) in Mohave, continued to be supported by Norman up to his death.

Norman commissioned RCS Aviation Ltd to reverse engineer and retrofit a CNC machined spar modification into the (Experimental category) Turbine Firecracker.

Norman commissioned RCS Aviation Ltd to conduct an initial design assessment of aerodynamic loads, control and stability.

GECI CEO Serge Bitboul in the meantime paved the way towards commercialisation of the SK-105 which finally saw the company Sky Aircraft SAS based at Chambley-Former aerodrome (LFJY) in Lorraine (Metz region) in 2008.

In 1995 Norman produced a design patent for a STOL aircraft of swept wing planform with forward cockpit and pylon mounted propeller of larger than normal diameter with fixed downwardly inclined thrust line.