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The autogyro pilot
- Norman Surplus
Flying around the world in an open cockpit aircraft is no mean feat, and it takes a special kind of person to do this. 47 year old Norman Surplus is from Larne, Co. Antrim, Northern Ireland. He is an accomplished autogyro pilot (a rare breed!), sailor and general outdoorsman.
He has been active in many outdoor pursuits over the years, spanning all the varied environments that the Globe has to offer. He is also the Second Coxwain (captain) on Larne's Royal National Lifeboat Institution all weather rescue boat (similar to coastguard rescue) .
He also has experience of mountaineering, climbing, skiing, cycling on the land surface and caving under it, canoeing, sailing, surfing on the water surface and scuba diving under it. For Norman, autogyro flying epitomizes the exploration of the final, most challenging environment, the air.
Before his planned record attempt circumnavigation of the globe in Gyrox autogyro he was diagnosed with an advanced stage of bowel cancer at the unusually young age of 40 in 2003. Read more?
As with all RNLI crew, Norman has had considerable amounts of sea survival training, and has had experience of joint exercises with RAF Air Sea Rescue.
Norman is also the co-founder of clean energy technology company B9 Energy.
He is married to Celia and has 2 children, Felix (11) and Petra (8).
 For Norman record breaking runs in the genes. He is not the first member of his family to set a record. His aunt Isabel Woods held the Woman’s ‘End to End of Ireland' Cycling Record set back in the 1950’s. Read more?
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