RESOURCES

Billy Robinson Photo from the Billy Robinson Field Collection

 

ONLINE RESOURCES - 1      If you search for "Billy Robinson +aviation", using the Google search engine, (1-6-12), you will find about 52,500 links! Among the most helpful is the following.

The Billy Robinson Story Grinnell's Pioneer Aviator      This page on the Stewart Library Heritage Collections website offers the definitive, online history of his life and career. In addition to the full story from Grinnell -A Century of Progress: 1854-1954 published by the Grinnell Herald-Register, 1954, you can access the library's collection of some 38 photographs. You can access the site by clicking on the title above.

 

ONLINE RESOURCES - 2      If you search the net using Google on "Grinnell-Robinson", you will find a link to the AeroFiles website. To find the entry, just click on: Grinnell-Robinson      You may want to use your "FIND" function on Grinnell to locate the entry on the page.

 

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES from Bill Owen, 11-23-02      Here at the "new" Grinnell airport I have been trying to make a modest museum of local aviation history. Billy Robinson is the main theme as he was one of the first airmail pilots and pioneers of flight. Billy was the second authorised airmail carrier. His early monoplanes were wing warpers. He set numerous speed records.       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).   Bill is the owner of Grinnell Aviation at the Grinnell Regional Airport in Grinnell, Iowa. It was there that pioneer aviator Ernest Nibeck served during the 20's and 30's. Bill has kindly supplied all of the text and photos for this page.

 

Grinnell Airport, 2002 Photo from the Billy Robinson Field Collection

 

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