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Kenneth
(Ken) William Norris, B.Sc., A.C.G.I., F.I.Mech.E.,
F.R.Ae.S., Freeman of the City of Coventry
One
of Britain’s most innovative, but largely unrecognised,
engineers died last Saturday, (Oct.1st.), peacefully in
bed at 3.15 a.m. He was born on 15th November 1921,
the fifth of six sons of Walter Norris, Engineer in Charge
at Burgess Hill Gas Works, Ken was the only one of his
family not to gain entry to a grammar school. However as
an apprentice to Armstrong Whitworth Aircraft in Coventry,
he soon shone, and went on to develop the Materials
Testing Department at Coventry Tech. where he also taught
and became a member of the design team of the very
revolutionary Armstrong Whitworth “Flying Wing”, which
earned him the Freedom of the City of Coventry.
Ken's
first speed record vehicle was a boat called 'White
Hawk',
a turbojet powered. This boat made attempts on the
water speed record on Lake Windermere in 1952 piloted by
Lieutenant Frank Hanning-Lee. It would seem this
came to Donald Campbell's attention.
As
an engineer who began his working life as an apprentice
with the aircraft company Armstrong Whitworth, Ken Norris
subsequently set up in business with his brother Lew to
create the high-speed boats and the car with which Donald
Campbell broke water and land speed records in the 1950s
and 1960s. After John Cobb’s death in a crash on Loch
Ness in 1952, the brothers set out to create the
jet-powered Bluebird
K7 hydroplane, applying to its design and construction the
lessons learnt from Cobb’s Crusader.
In
the 'Bluebird'
K7 Campbell
was able repeatedly to break the world water speed record
from 1955, when he exceeded 200mph. Thereafter he raised
the mark six more times until his death in 1967 on
Coniston Water, where he somersaulted in the craft while
in pursuit of the elusive barrier of 300mph.
Working
closely with
Campbell
, the Norris brothers also engineered the Bluebird
CN7 car, powered by a Bristol Siddeley Proteus gas-turbine
engine, in which
Campbell
finally emulated his famous racing father, Sir Malcolm
Campbell, and in July 1964 took the world land speed
record. His mark of 403.10mph on that occasion had
actually been exceeded by the American Craig Breedlove the
previous year. But this was not recognised in
Europe
, since Breedlove’s Spirit
of America did not, like a car, have the engine
geared to drive it through the wheels, but was, rather,
analogous to an aircraft which did not happen to take off.
(Subsequent world land speed record contests abandoned the
principle of mandatory through-wheel drive, for propulsion
from pure jet thrust)
Kenneth
William Norris was born in 1921, one of six sons of Walter
Norris, a gasworks engineer. The only one of his family not
to go to grammar school, he joined Armstrong Whitworth
Aircraft in Coventry as an apprentice. He soon shone, and by
1945 he was managing the mechanical testing department. He
became a member of the design team of the revolutionary
Armstrong Whitworth AW52 “Flying Wing”, which made its
first flight in 1947. He also taught at Coventry Technical
College , where he developed the materials testing
department.
While
reading for a degree at Imperial College London, he
determined to set up a design company with his brothers,
three of whom were qualified engineers and one an
accountant. Meanwhile one of his lecturers introduced him
to Commander Frank Hanning-Lee, who had designed a craft,
the White Hawk,
to attack the world water speed record. Norris did some
structural and stress work on it for Hanning-Lee, but the
project came to nothing.
Meanwhile,
his younger brother Lew, a mechanical engineer, had been
asked by Donald Campbell, a director of the company for
which he was working, to design some modifications to his
late father’s record-breaking Bluebird
K4 craft. However, in 1951
Campbell
wrecked this in a 170mph crash on Coniston Water, and
asked Lew and Ken to design a new craft. This was the
first major project of Norris Brothers Ltd.
In
the Bluebird
K7 trimaran (three pointer hydroplane), Campbell was to set seven world water speed
records between July 1955, when he achieved 202.32mph on
Ullswater, and December 1964, when he raised his mark to
276.33mph at Lake Dumbleyung, Western Australia. This made
him the only man to have set world land and water speed
records in the same year.
In
an attempt to achieve radically greater speeds the Norris
brothers prepared a new version of the K7, which featured
a Bristol Orpheus engine and a tailfin from a Hawker-Siddeley
Gnat lightweight fighter- trainer. On January 4, 1967, on
Coniston Water,
Campbell
was in search of 300mph, and had achieved 297mph on his
first run, when he turned for the second on a reverse
course. He and the Bluebird
were travelling at more than 300mph when the
nose of the craft started to lift. As horrified spectators
looked on, it described a back somersault and then
nosedived into the waters of the lake. Although divers
located the wreckage some days later,
Campbell
’s remains were not discovered until May 2001.
Continuing
his involvement in high-speed projects, Norris was manager
of Richard Noble’s Thrust
2 team, which broke the world land speed record
with 633.47mph at
Black Rock Desert
,
Nevada
, in 1983. He was subsequently a consultant to the Richard
Noble-
Ron Ayers
-designed Thrust SSC,
driven by
Andy Green
. This became the first land vehicle to break the sound
barrier, when it reached 763mph at
Black
Rock
Desert
in October 1997.
One
of his abiding passions was to see another British
water-speed record contender, and he was closely involved
initially with Nigel MacKnight's current Quicksilver
project. However, his expertise was not limited to
such exotic projects. He also led the teams that designed
the first auto- matic seatbelt mechanism; the first
piezoelectric gas-ignition system; a very advanced method
of transporting liquid methane in ocean tankers; and a
practical application of Professor Fritz Zwicky’s
Morphological Design process.
In
the late 1970s he moved into aviation, qualifying for his
private pilot’s license. With his two sons he set up a
turbine-jet engine maintenance and repair facility; a
“crop duster” operation; a pilot training school; and
Piper Aircraft Agencies in the UK and Spain. He was also a
member of the Design Award Panel and chair of the Design
Award Components Panel.
He
is survived by his wife Marjorie, and by two sons.
Ken
Norris, engineer, was born on November 15, 1921. He died
on October 1, 2005, aged 83
"Of
records and record breakers, I would remind you that speed
is relative to time. What we consider slow now, was
unthinkable in years gone by. However, each time a
contender goes out onto the field of battle, he or she
faces the same hurdles, the same fears, technical and financial
challenges as those before us, and most importantly of
all, has to muster themselves to boiling point make it all
happen. In the end, players will either triumph or
fail, but in doing so, show others where to, and where not
to tread. All too often players pay the ultimate
price. Whether they raise Man's technical mastery up
another notch or not, history should remember every last
one of them - for they were all players." (Nelson
Kruschandl December 2005)
Nelson,
our designer, was fortunate to meet with Ken Norris on
many memorable occasions to discuss progress with his
Bluebird electric powered vehicles and other projects
between 1991 and 2003. Ken was an inspiration to
Nelson and many other players in the land speed arena, not
least Donald Campbell, Richard Noble and lately Nigel
MacKnight. He was well liked and respected by
everyone who met him. Sadly, since Ken took a fall,
damaging his hip, he was less able to give of his
time. Yet, in January of this year (2005) he made
the effort to visit the Steam record car exhibition.
He will be sadly missed but not forgotten.
Nelson
Kruschandl
LINKS
:
Hydroplanes
and Racing:
Hydrofest
Hyrdroplane
& Raceboat Musuem
World
Water Speed Records
Hydros
Seattle
Outboard Association
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