Stories abound of PE at Epsom Downs in the 1950's, generally shirtless, with models performing wild aerobatics as he trimmed and tamed them. He took great joy in having several of his scale free-flight models all in the air at once!
To call P.E. Norman multi-talented doesn't do him justice. Aside from being recognized, at least circa 1962, as Britain's most accomplished aeromodeller, he made and played professional violins (aka luthier), wa a wood carver, a silver smith, a sculptor, and even an artist who painted the image used on the cover of this February 1962 American Modeler. P.E. is credited with designing, building, and flying the first pendulum-operated-elevator free flight model and has designed and built many ducted fan scale jet models (long before commercial ducted fan units were available).
My DR-1 was scratch built in the mid 1960's from Aero-Modeler plans designed for free flight by the famous British Aero Modeler P.E. Norman; it was controlled by using a unique pendulum arrangement to stabilize the model in the pitch mode. The design featured a flyaway wing components to limit damage in a rough landing; of which I am sure there were many. This particular model retained many of these damage tolerant features as well as adding 3 channel radio control.
Much later it was upgraded by adding ailerons, miniature servos, 2.4GH radio and an OS Type 1 Wankel engine. Future modifications include the addition of an autopilot unit, to improve stability.
Plans for this design are available to this day.
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