Articles for tag Frank Robinson
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May
20
2024
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Posted by Admin
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When Bell wanted to compete directly with the Robinson Helicopter Company, leadership assigned David Smith to be chief engineer for the development of the Bell 505. The first thing Smith did was lease a Robinson R66 for his team to analyze.
"I told them, 'You need to know the enemy,'" Smith recalled. Bell's old guard had mocked the Robinson helicopter as a "toy for the rich guys," but Smith's team quickly realized it was much, much more.
"When we took it apart and studied it, it was quite the opposite," Smith related. "It was ruthlessly efficient. As an engineer, I could appreciate the thousands and thousands of decisions they made that got the product to this highly evolved state."
The 505 Jet Ranger X project was completed early and $10 million under budget under Smith's leadership. Now a decade later, Smith is Robinson's new leader after serving as its VP of operations for the past year.
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Tags:
David Smith
Frank Robinson
Kurt Robinson
Robinson Helicopter
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Company Profiles