1884-1916 AKA William C. Robinson |
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Photo from the Billy Robinson Field Collection |
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1884-1916 |
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When the motor age began, Billy switched from bicycle repair to working on one-cylinder automobile
engines, and began experimenting with flying machine engines. Eventually, in partnership with an expert mechanic,
Charlie Hink,
he bought the repair shop where they worked, and continued his experiments. He soon built his first flying machine, a monoplane,
molding his own castings, welding the iron, and constructing both the motor and plane according to this own ideas. His first engines
failed, but eventually he produced one of the very earliest successful radial engines of 60 horse power, and pioneered the way for the
modern radial engines of today. Billy had a plane but had not yet learned to fly, so in the Spring of 1912 he became a mechanic for Max Lillie of Cicero, Illinois, a then well known aviator. The two went to Florida for a year where Lillie taught Billy to fly. Billy made his first solo flight on August 3d using a Lillie-Wright aircraft, and on the 22nd, obtained pilot license No. 162. He left Lillie and spent several months flying exhibitions for the National Aeroplane Co. of Cicero, flying Curtiss, Beech-National, and French Nieuport planes. Billy achieved his greatest success on October 17, 1914. Sponsored by the Des Moines Capital and the Chicago Tribune, he took off from Des Moines for a non-stop flight to Chicago, carrying a package of letters from Des Moines and Grinnell. Somewhere about thirty miles west of Chicago, the weather closed in and, fearing that he might fly over Chicago and fall into Lake Michigan, he swung to the south and landed at Kentland, Indiana. He had been in the air for 4 hours, 44 minutes and traveled approximately 390 miles at a rate of 80 miles an hour, thus exceeding the American non-stop distance record by 125 miles. Having established the distance record, he turned his attention to altitude. In 1916 the record was 17,000 feet and Robinson had been to within 3,000 feet of that. On March 11 he met his death attempting to beat the record, while his wife and most of Grinnell watched. About 4:00 pm people on the ground heard a break in the steady throb of the engine and soon Billy's biplane was seen tossing in apparently aimless descent, obviously out of control, and crashed. Billy burned with the aircraft. Just what happened, heart attack, mechanical failure, cerebral hemorrhage or other, was never determined. The plane and instruments were a complete loss, but a duplicate engine was preserved as part of the Physics Museum of Grinnell College, and is now on permanent display at the Grinnell Regional Airport and Billy C. Robinson Field. The following is a quote from an article in THE PALIMPSEST, the official journal of The State Historical Society of Iowa: |
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"When he organized the Grinnell Aeroplane Company, citizens of
Grinnell bought stock liberally. If he had lived a year or two longer, Grinnell, with the advantage of an established airplane factory and
flying school, might have been selected as the site of a military aviation training camp during World War I. And with such prestige, the
aviation center of the nation might have developed there. Billy Robinson's premature death was a distinct loss to Grinnell and to
Iowa." |
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Billy was buried in Hazlewood Cemetery at Grinnell, the grave marked by a granite slab split from a
lone boulder and bearing a bronze tablet.
11(1930):369-375. Reprinted with permission of The State Historical Society of Iowa.} From the Billy Robinson Field Collection |
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Photo from the Billy Robinson Field Collection |
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GRINNELL, IA. 118 Photo from the Billy Robinson Field Collection |
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GRINNELL, IOWA |
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Billy died March 1916 trying to set an altitude record of 18,000ft. He spun down but the tracks left in
the snow showed he landed the plane and on roll out the plane hit a ditch, nosed over and burned. We mostly figured hypoxia with a
late semi concious landing. He died in the biplane. |
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Grinnell's Pioneer Aviator |
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You may want to use your "FIND" function on Grinnell to locate the entry on the page. |
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from Bill Owen, 11-23-02 He and his partner, started an aircraft company here in Grinnell but it folded with his death in 1916. The engines were made here in Grinnell and designed by his partner (land loving) Charles Hink.I have a "one of" engine that they had developed and sold to the french Gov. on display in the lobby. It is a two bank three Cylinder radial (total six cylinders). |
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Photo from the Billy Robinson Field Collection |
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KILLED IN FALL FAMOUS IOWA AVIATOR, WHO HAD FLOWN AT IOWA CITY, KILLED SATURDAY Fell from Height of 16,000 Feet_ Lost 300 Feet Very Sharply, and Was Burned When Gasoline Tank Exploded as He Hit the Ground. The accident occurred near Ewart, ten miles from this city. |
the earth and for more than 5,000 feet, according to witnesses, was marked by a series of fluttering drops at the end of which
Robinson would succeed in righting the machine for a moment. When 300 feet from the ground, however, he lost control completely and
the machine darted to the earth. The dead aviator was known as a cautious flyer and avoided the spectacular feats which characterized the performances of his contemporary, Lincoln Beachey. W. C. Robinson's heart became affected by the high altitude he reached in his aeroplane Saturday, so that he partially lost contrl of his muscles, which caused the fatal fall near Ewart. Such was the decision reached by physicians and mechanicians who examined the aviator's body and the wrecked machine immediately after the accident according to Hal Wells, general manager of the Grinnell Aero company. Wells talked with the flyer just before he started on his fatal trip. Robinson was determined to set an altitude record, and so expressed himself to his partner. The Aero company and the aero school at Grinnell will be continued despite its founder's death. Wells already is in correspoindence with an aviator of prominence in Chicago who seems willing to take up the work of teaching Iowans aviation where Robinson left off. Grinnell, until he was within about 300 feet of the earth in his fall. At |
that time the machine was making irregular volplanes towards the earth, as though the driver was
trying to control the machine but lacked the strength. Wells drove an automobile loaded with physicians headed by Dr. O. F. Parish to the place of Robinson's fall. The found the aviator had fallen to a bowl-shaped field surrounded by high hills. The propeller was smashed, and Robinson's body was lying over the flames, which, when he had been pulled from the machine, had entirely destoryed both hands. A physician's examination of the body brought the declaration by the doctors that the flyer's heart undoubtedly had been so affected by the thin air in the altitude he had reached that it caused him partially to lose control of his muscles. . Funeral services will be held at Grinnell Tuesday morning. There will be no coroner's inquest. |
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From the records of Nancy Mess, PO Box 3984, Ithaca, NY 14852-3984 Editor's Note: If you have any more information on this Early Flier, please contact me. E-mail to Ralph Cooper Back 
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