For Robinson Helicopter, this will be a bittersweet year. While the Torrance, California-based OEM celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2023, it will do so without the man who founded the company in 1973, as Frank Robinson, the legendary patriarch of the family-owned business, passed away this past November at the age of 92.
Over the past year, the manufacturer increased its production of helicopters, delivering 258 compared with 244 in 2021. “That was a good thing, but it was sure a lot of work to get there,” said company president Kurt Robinson, noting that lingering post-Covid supply chain constraints served to limit the company’s output. While the airframer has worked to become as self-sufficient as possible at its 600,000-sq ft-production and assembly facility at Torrance’s Zamperini Field, manufacturing everything from wiring harnesses to rotor blades, Robinson expressed frustration about the wait for some of the longer lead-time components not made in-house, such as bearings.
“A lot of it was as we saw that production needed to increase, [we were] trying to get not only the parts that we already ordered but also increase the quantities that we needed,” he told AIN. He added that he would go into Monday morning production meetings not knowing which bottleneck he would need to address that week. “I think most of those are resolved; I’m certainly getting fewer and fewer of those as time goes by, and that’s allowing us to speed up the line that much more.”
In 2021, the company set a milestone when production of the R66, the company’s only turbine-powered offering, exceeded its popular piston-powered R44 Raven II. That trend has continued with delivery of 101 R66s in 2022 compared with 86 Raven IIs. As for the rest of the R44 line, Robinson last year produced 51 Raven Is and 5 Cadets. It also added 15 R22s.
“We currently have over 350 helicopters on back order, so if last year we did a total of 258, you can see we’ve got some work getting our production up,” noted Robinson. While most manufacturers view backlog as production security, Robinson takes a different tack. “It’s nice, but it’s bad because we want to get the helicopters out as quickly as we can to everybody,” he explained. The rotorcraft maker’s production rate stands at three R66s a week, 3.5 R44s per week, and one R22 every two weeks.
Attractive jobs at Robinson in the post-Covid environment has allowed the OEM to add 50 new employees over the past year, increasing its workforce total to 1,020 at the start of 2023. “We are continuing to hire and expand,” said Robinson, noting that the recent worker shortages are resolving as well. “We’re a little picky on who we bring in here, but it’s working out as we move forward.” At the moment the company runs two shifts at its factory.
For this year’s Heli-Expo in Atlanta, Robinson (Booths B3420, B4048) brought three of its helicopters to display at the Georgia World Congress Center. The fully equipped examples include an R66 with the newly introduced pressure refueling system. The $18,000 option allows for rapid refueling in operations such as agriculture spraying or Bambi bucket use, where the operator requires quick ground turnarounds. “We’ve had quite the demand for it, so we’re pleased to have this out, and you will be able to see it at the show this year,” said Robinson. While not on display this year, Robinson has received FAA certification for a night-vision goggle (NVG)-compatible cockpit for the R66 in law enforcement use. Last fall it delivered the first of two factory-outfitted examples ordered by the Polk County (Florida) Sheriff’s department.
A pair of R44s—a Raven II and a Cadet—both equipped with a recently-introduced electronic ignition system, round out Robinson’s display. “That is going in all the piston aircraft and that improves the starting of the aircraft, and it eliminates the 500-hour [magneto] inspection so we believe it enhances the aircraft with increased reliability and also reduces maintenance,” Robinson explained. While the feature was actually available starting around the end of 2021, the first production examples suffered reliability shortcomings that Robinson says it long since has resolved with the system’s manufacturer.