True identification needed

[Varese2002]

After the interest on Billy Robinson in the Breguet ID Challenge I looked here at a very interesting picture collection.

At least one picture is seriously misattributed as Billy Robinson in a Nieuport French airplane. Further specified as

While taking flying lessons in Chicago, Robinson flew this Nieuport French airplane with a 60-horsepower Anzani rotary engine of Italian design with a tractor movement. (Description taken from Grinnel

The machine has some traces of the Santos-Dumont Demoiselle machine, but with ugly modifications, making it a hazardous design. Look at the rotary engine just behind the back of the pilot, the chains to the rod driving the propeller in front of the wing (!),
Robinson is sitting in a sort of wooden chair at least holding something like a steering stick. I also have my doubts about the engine, is this really an Anzani and is this a rotary, perhaps a fixed radial? Questions enough

The best way to search around is 1910 somewhere in the American region where Billy Robinson was busy at that times.

Are there any people in the know who can identify this machine surely ?

Cheers

Kees

[Rod_Filan]

I thought for sure this was a rotary---but if you extend the longerons following Robinson's seat, there doesn't look to be enough width for a rotary. Beyond this photo at your link---Grinnell Historical Collection items 33,34,35---Billy apparently builds his own engines. Again, radial.

Duplicate of the radial motor and propeller destroyed when Billy Robinson crashed. This motor was built by the Dodge Tool company, a Grinnell enterprise headed by W. S. Dodge, following Robinson's plans and drawings. It is currently on display at the Grinnell Regional Airport and Billy C. Robinson Field.

Cheers
Rod

[Varese2002]

Thanks Rod for your comments. I searched around in the Billy Robinson (William C. Robinson) chapter of the Early Birds of flying here.

There is the following quote

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.

In all probability we look here at the first 'home made' product of Robinson (a crude product really), which he constructed before his collaboration with Max Lillie, starting in Spring 1912. Looking again it appears the machine almost stands between the bushes, being built in the backyard. The false reference to a Nieuport can be related to the Nieuport flying on Cicero with the National Aeroplane Co. end 1912 / beginning 1913.

Rod, the engine of Robinson is still exhibited at Grinnell airport. I wonder if there are modern shots (with details) of it available. In the photo collection of Robinson are a few pictures of the 100 hp Robinson engine.

Cheers

Kees

[Froggy]

Hello All, hello kees

This machine looks like a Nieuport I of 1909

http://www.ctie.monash.edu.au/hargra...909_02_500.jpg
http://www.ctie.monash.edu.au/hargra...909_01_500.jpg

May be his first home made plane was built from a Nieuport I ?

Cordialement
Bruno

[Aquilius]

Hello Boys,

probably this is Billy's first monoplane. That would make sense.

From my impression the engine must be a radial. There is not enough space for it to rotate. And for a rotary it looks very loosely fittet.

Maybe he built it by the impression of Nieuport and Santos-Dumont designes. Maybe he had some publications from France by the hand. Or have there Nieuport I like airplanes been around at Chicago?

Kees, thanks for working on in this task. I didn´t look closer to this picture.
Probably that is a missing part of Billy's aircraft designes.

Cheers

Aquilius

[Varese2002]

Originally Posted by Froggy

Hello All, hello kees

This machine looks like a Nieuport I of 1909

May be his first home made plane was built from a Nieuport I ?

Cordialement
Bruno

Hi Bruno. In all honesty, there is almost no similarity I could see between the first design of Edouard Nieuport and the machine Billy Robinson is sitting. The Nieuport is tractor monoplane with the engine in front and the pilot sitting in a fuselage looking out over the wing. This machine is a much greater engineering effort than the meagre machine where Robinson is sitting. The first Nieuport also never visited America let alone Chicago. It first flew in december 1909 but was fully destroyed in the catrastrophic floods of 1910 when the Seine inundated a large part of Paris.

The machine has more of a Santos-Dumont Demoiselle, clumsily engineered. Given the chain drive propeller, the engine midships and the steering apparatus the world clumsy has it exactly right

At best it is a bits and pieces machine. The contemporary American aviation (aeronautic) weekly magazines will have had pictures and drawings from all kinds of machines, delivering the idea for this machine.

Although there is no proof at present that this is the Billy Robinson designed monoplane (parasol type) with the help of expert mechanic Charlie Hink (that should be 'leading the witness') it is a possibility.
It is unlikely that the machine was flown by Billy Robinson, because he had no flying experience at all and he lived till 1916. Sure he would have crashed - probably killed - when he had tried to fly with this machine .

Cheers

Kees

[Rod_Filan]

I agree with Kees' assessment of this a/c. If it was flown, it was probably done so only once on a short hop that scared the daylights out of whoever was piloting.

IMHO the Nieuport misidentification comes not from similarity nor a basis in design, but from the knowledge of a Nieuport monoplane flown by Robinson much later. A photo of this plane can be found in Carroll Gray's collection.

Searches for other photos of Robinson's 6-cyl radial engine and propeller replica at Grinnell, Iowa have come up empty--other than one contemporary photograph at aerofiles of the Dodge Victory, with some specifications.

Dodge Tool Co, Grinnell IA.
Dodge Victory (photo- 1921 Angle Encyclopedia)
Victory 1918 = 125hp 706.86ci 6RA; dry wt: 394#.

Cheers
Rod

[Rod_Filan]

Further investigation leads to the Stewart Library - Grinnell, Iowa where one can find (from a yet unknown but apparently a local publication from 1954) The Story of Billy Robinson as a PDF document.

Billy attended Grinnell college for a time but always returned to his chosen work with undiminished zest. Professor [Grant] Gale described him in those early days, as an "invenerate worker with a violent temper."

"In his little shop on Fourth avenue", continues Professor Gale, "Billy had caught the vision of flying, where I do not know, and with simple tools and the help of Charles Hink he had constructed a small aeroplane, possibly a glorified glider.

"The original monoplane which he had constructed contained a 60 horse power radial motor built here in Grinnell by Billy. Whether or not Billy ever flew this early plane I do not know. It seems unlikely that Billy would have been so enthusiastic and so ardent without ever having attempted flight, successful or otherwise."

Billy's quiet life in Grinnell was interrupted when the Robinson circus came to town. It was announced by a half page advertisement in The Grinnell Herald of July 10, 1914 [should read July 14, 1910 I believe]. Apparently the actual date when the circus came to town was July 15 and Billy was there with his monoplane as a featured attraction, which proved so popular that when the circus left town Billy went along. He did not stay with the circus long but settled in Frankfort, Ind., where he remained only a year. While there, according to The Herald, he flew his monoplane using the 60 horse power radial motor which he had made in Grinnell but had not used. At Frankfort he met Max Lily, a famous aviator, and spent the winter of 1911 with him in Florida taking flying lessons.

..
..

There is now on exhibition at the college a radial motor later made by the Dodge Tool company, a Grinnell enterprise headed by W. S. Dodge, following Billy's plans and drawings. This is supposed to be an exact duplicate of the motor destroyed when Billy crashed. Some of Billy's original plans and drawings are also in the possession of Professor Gale.

On a card signed by W.S. Dodge, F.J. Whinery and Grant Ramsey, trustees of the Dodge Tool company, which accompanied the motor when it was place on display at the college, the statement appears that the motor had been built at the request of the Aircraft Division of the Ordnance Department of the United States government and had been given a block test at McCook Field, Dayton, Ohio, in August 1918. The statement continued: "The Armistice was signed before any decision was made regarding using air cooled motors."

A recent comment from an aviator passing through Grinnell gives us a better idea on where the Dodge Victory radial is currently displayed:
The airport manager has made the airport office into a modest museum of Grinnell-native, aviation pioneer Billy Robinson history and artifacts. Nice cross-country stop.

The Grinnell Historical Museum also contains artifacts related and belonging to Billy Robinson.

An interesting foot note on Grinnell:
It was founded [in 1854] by Josiah Bushnell Grinnell, a Congregational clergyman, abolitionist, congressman, and railway promoter from Vermont, to whom Horace Greeley, the American journalist, made his famous statement, “Go West, young man, go West, and grow up with the country!”


Cheers
Rod

[Rod_Filan]

Originally Posted by Aquilius

Maybe he built it by the impression of Nieuport and Santos-Dumont designes. Maybe he had some publications from France by the hand.

Hello Aquilius,

I took your idea and came up with the 1909 Blériot XII and 1908-09 Santos-Dumont no.19 bis (shown here with the drive-belt removed)



I'm not sure of the exact dates these two would have first flown, but both these monoplanes would have indeed appeared in publications of the day, easily obtained at Grinnell college or elsewhere--only 50 miles (80km) from Des Moines.

This Tripp monoplane no.10 is an odd bird. Another American Eurocopy of obvious Blériot influence from around the same time. Maybe a bit later(?) I assume this is a machine built by John Tripp of Duluth, Minnesota, (Go much further West, young man). At some point John Tripp registered a Tripp XI powered by a Lawrance radial (reg. 559W)



Cheers
Rod

[Varese2002]

A search of the literature on Billy Robinson brings the following items:

(1) W. G Roy wrote an 8-page article Billy Robinson, Bird-man in The Palimpsest the monthly publication of the State Historical Society of Iowa, Division of the State Historical Society issued in September 1930.

You will not believe it but back issues can still be bought at $5 at the Society here. The title of the magazine was changed from Palimpsest to Iowa Heritage Illustrated in 1996.

(2)George, Jim. Billy Robinson : pioneer Iowa aviator. Iowan. Vol. 6, no. 5 (June/July 1958). This is the magazine The Iowan that began with vol. 1, Oct./Nov. 1952. Back issues before 1967 are sold out.

There is also the article by the Professor Grant Gale named in the PDF-article.

As the engine designed and built by the Robinson and Hink duo was judged revolutionary it is strange that no US patent can be found. It is not clear to wht the actual revolutionary nature of the engine was, as so little is published about it.

Cheers

Kees