no obvious improvement over existing types
and the N.1B was abandoned.
Serials N18 and N19, meanwhile, were
allotted to the Norman Thompson ‘Cruiser
Flying Boat’ ordered in January 1917 to
Admiralty Department Speci cation N.2(C).
Unfortunately, the programme fell into serious
delay and was eventually terminated. Three
‘School Biplane’ ying boats, N107-N109, were
contracted in January 1918, to be powered
by either 200hp Hispano-Suizas or Arabs, but
were cancelled when the war ended.
The large Norman Thompson N.2C ’boat,also to AD Speci cation N.2(C), did materialise.
Developed from the N.T.4A and with common
ight surfaces, an improved hull was introduced
built along John Porte’s principles. Since the
spring of 1917, Norman Thompson had been
licence-manufacturing Porte’s Felixstowe
F.2A ying boat hulls, and had absorbed the
advantages. Porte’s arrangement was much
simpler than the boat-built hulls produced by
Norman Thompson, instead adopting a cross-
braced plywood-covered girder structure. The
N.2C was powered by 200hp Arab pushers,
and was intended for maritime patrol and anti-
surface vessel work.
A contract for two N.2Cs, N82 and
N83, arrived in November 1917but Percy Hyde Beadle left shortly afterwards.
Nonetheless N82 was completed, undergoing
trials during the summer and autumn of- It was intended the N.2C visit Grain
for assessment but along with N83, (which
was never completed), N82 was scrapped on
New Year’s Eve.
Early in 1919 the Norman Thompson Flight
Company was absorbed by Handley Page.
Like many small rms, the slump in orders
following the Armistice proved its undoing.
The aircraft produced by Thompson’s
company aren’t widely remembered
today, but they made an important
contribution to maritime
ying and to Britain’s
war effort.
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Volume 79 No 9.
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82 Aviation News incorporating Jets September 2017The tandem two-seat ghter, N.1B N37,
seen at Middleton. Its ailerons were
linked by struts, while the rakish n
of many previous Norman Thompson
designs was dispensed with.78-82_thompsonDC.mf.indd 82 03/08/2017 19:09