Jack Norris, an aviation and space pioneer, died on December 21, 2021. Holder of more than 50 aerospace patents, many conceived during his time with NASA, he was a constantly inventive presence in the aviation world.
Jack’s many achievements and remarkably inventive capabilities make him a memorable soul
The Experimental Aircraft Association shares a short autobiographical sketch with an incredible number of highlights. As a youth, Jack was twice the Senior Overall National Model Aircraft Champion in 1946 and 1948.
Later, he created Boeing’s flight controls, which allowed safe flights for over four billion of us. 107 of his maneuvering rocket control valves flew on Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo missions, and are now in the Smithsonian.
Jack Norris with some of the dozens of model trophies he won in his youth
He was the Technical Director for the Voyager, Burt Rutan’s airplane that carried Dick Rutan and Jeanna Yeager on their non-stop around-the-world flight in 1986. This followed a long career that included acting as a consultant on nuclear power, nuclear submarines, and work for the U. S. Air Force on acceptance testing for craft as diverse as the F-100, F102, F-104, B-57, B-66, and “lots more!”
As Technical Director for the Voyager flight, Jack oversaw a great deal of planning and execution for the record flight – the first unrefueled flight around the world
Jack owned a Luscombe Silvaire for at least 60 years. He wrote about the many flights he made and the many modifications he incorporated in the little craft, including a Supplemental Type Certificate seat to allow comfortable cruising. His adventures in the Luscombe included high-altitude, long-distant trips on low fuel burn. He wrote several magazine articles on that topic and a book – The Logic of Flight: The Thinking Man’s Way To Fly – that explained how flying high and fast saved fuel and made for more pleasant trips.
Jack and wife Milly (married since 1953) with the Luscombe they flew for 60 years
That book includes a flip-side bonus, his volume Propellers: The First, and Final Explanation. A bit eccentric in its layout and ransom-note style typography, the book does a great job of explaining propeller dynamics for the patient reader. Those teachings paid off as demonstrated by Reno air racers that applied his teachings.
His ability to plan and direct a long-range flight paid off on the Voyager trip. The heaviest part of the craft was the fuel load – causing the 2,250-pound (1,020-kilogram) empty weight airplane to gross 9,694.5 pounds (4,397.4 kg) on takeoff. Voyager landed back at Edwards Air Force Base on December 23, 1986, having traveled, “26,366 statute miles (42,432 km; the FAI (Federation Aeronautique Internationale) accredited distance is 40,212 km) at an average altitude of 11,000 feet (3,350 meters) according to Wikipedia. A mere 106 pounds (48 kilograms) of fuel remained in the tanks, 1.5 percent of the full fuel load.
We can use that type of lightweight structure (less than 1,000 pounds for the airframe) and low drag for future electric craft.
To that end, he created a dead-accurate way to measure propulsion efficiency on small aircraft. “Jack developed the first really complete aerodynamic data on flying propeller airplanes, accurate drag and power curves, but very significant, the first accurate overall propulsion efficiency, on a flying propeller plane by inventing Zero Thrust Glide Testing, effectively making the propeller disappear, thus simply solving an 85 year problem. He was a director of the Comparative Aircraft Flight Efficiency organization CAFE, a pioneering test foundation.”
His Logic of Flight includes a clue as to what made Jack so inventive and yet humble. “Sociologically, it was the birth of THE SCIENTIST, ENGINEERS, where the man that creates a nation’s destiny, is the creative man of intellect, not the obsolete Saddam Hussein type, the warrior, or the shallow power seeker.
“We will have to corral the ‘power seekers’, who still operate on hormones and manipulation from the bygone days, and learn to ‘move them out of the way’ so society can move on to the next level! The people are catching on. The Swiss have a “citizen government”! We are into the age of knowledge and it works! It’s the Scientist Engineer who has created modern life, our “horn of plenty”, and there need be no negatives, because the thinking man knows how to clean, recycle, preserve, as well!”
Your editor had the privilege of meeting Jack at several Experimental Soaring Association Western Workshops, and once at Oshkosh’s AirVenture, where he kept a large crowd enthralled with his expertise. He admitted to the group that even though he was in his eighties, he had the curious mind and restless spirit of a 16-year-old. Let’s remember him for that.