Solo Flight

Norm started flying with his father as a kid and took his first solo flight on his 16th birthday, earning himself a write-up. Norm graduated from high school in Winifred in 1953 at age 17.

World War II pulled many of Winifred's men from the workforce. The circumstance created opportunity for young boys like Norm, who picked up all manner of odd jobs. He pitched hay and drove tractors for farmers. He delivered the local newspaper and worked on engines at the family's D-Y Garage. Norm used the Model T he'd earned from his Uncle Oskie to haul neighbors' garbage to the dump, charging 25 cents a barrel. It was his first business.

Around the time Norm was 11, Boots had purchased a plane to fly to the family's garage in Denton. He'd occasionally let Norm take the controls. It was Norm's first real taste of freedom, and he liked it.

By the time Norm was 15, he'd set pins at Winifred's bowling alley and hiked deep into the Missouri Breaks as a surveyor's rod man. He was comfortable with machinery and repairing engines, and he'd saved up enough money to own his independence. In 1951, Norm invested his savings in flying lessons. For the next six months, he learned all he could about airplanes and flight.

On December 10, 1951, his 16th birthday and the first day he could legally fly alone, Norm travelled to Lewistown. A storm had dropped a layer of snow across the prairie, and Norm was going to solo with skis for landing gear. With his parents watching, Norm shot three landings to become the youngest person in Central Montana to solo an aircraft.