Frank D. Robinson

Franklin Davis Robinson
Frank Robinson in 2010
Born	(1930-01-14)14 January 1930 Carbonado, Washington, U.S.
Occupation	Entrepreneur, Engineer
Known for	Founder of the Robinson Helicopter Company
Children	Jami, Kurt, Terry, Lincoln, Mark, & Cindy

Franklin D. "Frank" Robinson (born 1930) is an engineer and the founder of Robinson Helicopter Company in Torrance, California. He served as president, Chief Executive Officer and chairman of the company for many years. In the early 1970s, he designed the Robinson R22 helicopter, a popular, light, two-place civilian aircraft, which later developed into the R44, one of the most successful civil helicopters in history.

Robinson was born in Carbonado in Washington State and received his BSME degree from the University of Washington in 1957, with graduate work in aeronautical engineering at the University of Wichita.

He started his engineering career in 1957 at Cessna Aircraft Company working on the Cessna CH-1 Skyhook four-place helicopter. After  3 ¹⁄₂ years at Cessna, he spent one year working on the certification of the Umbaugh U-17 and  4 ¹⁄₂ years at McCulloch Aircraft Corporation performing design studies on inexpensive rotorcraft. Robinson worked one year at Kaman Aircraft on gyrodyne-type rotorcraft. After this he spent two years at Bell Helicopter where he earned a reputation as a "tail rotor expert". In 1969, he moved to Hughes Helicopters to work on a variety of research and development projects, including a new tail rotor for the Hughes 500 helicopter and work on the "The Quiet One" program.