Frank Robinson died on Nov. 12, 2022 at the age of 92. He realized his dream of building a small, simple, and affordable helicopter. It transformed the industry and today Robinson Helicopter Corporation is the world’s most prolific civil rotorcraft manufacturer, with nearly 14,000 delivered to date. But it almost didn’t happen.
On April 29, 1977, less than two years after its first flight, test pilot Bob Golden was flying the lone R22 prototype when the tail rotor failed. He autorotated into the water and escaped unharmed, but the helicopter sank.
Robinson had to recover the wreckage from the Pacific Ocean floor off the coast of southern California and discover and correct the problem, or the R22 program was over. Short on time and funds, he hired a salvage vessel. Three days into the recovery attempt there was still no joy. The salvage diver ran out of duty time and Robinson was almost out of money. There would not be another day of searching. But the boat captain, the diver’s father, was himself a retired diver and Robinson convinced him to submerge. The father found the wreckage and the boat pulled it up.
The aft casting on the tail cone had failed. “They redesigned it, made it five times stronger, and never had an issue with it since,” recalls Robinson’s son and current company CEO, Kurt Robinson.
“If that father hadn’t gone down and done the dive, I think Frank would have volunteered to go down and do it,” said Tim Tucker, who first met Robinson in the mid-1970s, took delivery of the first production R22 in 1979, and later became the company’s chief instructor and a driving force behind its now famous safety course. “He just absolutely refused to fail,” Tucker told AIN. “And he wouldn’t let anybody he dealt with let him fail. He wouldn’t let money be a problem, the FAA be a problem, employees be a problem. He had this tenacity that was overpowering.”
“He always was stubborn and single-minded,” Kurt recalled. “When he had an idea or a vision, he was really good at pushing it forward and getting other people to help him do it. He never gave up. He always told me, ‘I can’t solve all the problems that I’ve got, but I can solve the ones I need to solve today.’”
“As soon as a problem came up, he jumped on it one hundred percent, solved it, and then moved on,” said Tucker.
And at times the problems seemed insurmountable. In 1973, aged 43 and a single father of three, Frank Robinson quit his job, mortgaged the house, and set up shop in the garage and the corporate office in the living room. His children were supportive, even though Robinson warned them, “You realize that I’m not going to have any money, and this is going to be a long period of time,” recalled Kurt.
Kurt helped build the company’s first hangar at Zamperini Field in Torrance, a small, ramshackle affair with an outhouse, and did data analysis when not attending high school and later college in San Diego. After self-financing and finishing his undergraduate degree, Kurt wanted to work a few years and then pursue an MBA. (Which he would eventually earn along with a law degree.) “I was really into business. I had a job all lined up,” he explained. The R22 had just been certified and Frank Robinson had another idea.
Kurt recalled the conversation. Frank said, “We’re getting started on production, how about coming home, working at the company, and helping us set it up. You could live at home and save money so you could go to school.” The pitch worked and Kurt moved home for two years, even though Frank could not afford to pay him.
“At that point the hook was set. From there I don’t think there was any doubt that I was going to be part of the company, even after I went back to school,” Kurt said.
As focused as he could be on solving a problem, Frank knew when he didn’t have the answer and could delegate, according to Kurt. “He didn’t have all the answers. There would be times when I would walk into his office and say, ‘What are we going to do about this?’ And he would give me a blank look and say, ‘I have no idea, you’ve got to figure it out.’”
A seemingly high accident rate for the R22 was one of the problems the company encountered early on. Tim Tucker had served as an Army aviator and worked as a civilian flight instructor when he met Frank Robinson and put down a $300 deposit for that first production R22, list price $42,000 (without the radios). Tucker joined the company in 1982 and he and Frank Robinson together taught Robinson’s early R22 instructor safety courses, having identified instructor experience deficits as a large contributing factor in those accidents.
Initially, Robinson petitioned the FAA to increase the time requirements for instructors. When that entreaty became mired in bureaucracy, he took his case directly to insurers, who agreed not only to higher mandated times for R22 instructors but also completion of the Robinson safety course. The course ran from Wednesday through mid-day on Saturday and was a combination of classroom instruction and flying. Between sessions and at lunch, attendees often peppered Robinson with questions, which he cheerfully answered. Tucker recalled those days. “What an opportunity for a flight instructor,” he said. “You could ask Frank any question about the R22. If he couldn’t answer it, nobody could. It was his helicopter.
“What impressed me as time went on was his knowledge of metallurgy and manufacturing, not just aerodynamics,” Tucker added, citing Robinson’s use of greaseless bearings, the first for a helicopter, as an example of his innovative thinking. Tucker also credited Robinson’s 2,000-hour whole helicopter overhaul requirement as bringing a new level of predictability to light helicopter maintenance costs.
“He was such a unique character,” said Tucker. “He completely changed the world of helicopters.” Tucker pointed out that when the R22 hit the market, most primary rotorcraft instruction would be given in a helicopter like a Bell 47 for prices around $150 an hour. When the R22 came to market, the price could be cut to $48. “It cut the cost of helicopter training by 60 percent.”
The export market accounts for 70 percent of Robinson’s sales and Tucker would eventually travel the world teaching Robinson safety courses. Inevitably at these events, attendees approach him to express their gratitude. “They would not be in the world of helicopters, be it as an owner or an operator, without the Robinson helicopter,” he said.
“There are a lot of people who rely on us,” noted Kurt. “[Frank] cared so much about aviation and helicopters. Having that passion [for your work] is something that I try to pass along to my kids and our employees. Life is so much more interesting if you get passionate about what you do. I live to work, not work to live.”