Robinson Factory Tour

An R44 with most of its components–engine, tail boom, tail, seats and skids-assembled gets ready to head down the line.

Although it has cut production from 17 to 12 helicopters a week, the Robinson factory in Torrance is a busy place, with hundreds of workers busy doing the thousands of little jobs needed to get a helicopter from a pile of raw materials to a finished flying product.

A row of machining tools where hundreds of small and not so small parts for Robinson's helicopters are fabricated. Photos By Robert Goyer

Workers assemble wiring bundles on different helicopter models using templates specific to a single model.

At this phase of construction the R44 is an open book. Steel skids, monocoque cabin construction and a steel engine mount form the basis of all of the company's models.

Tail sections under construction.

A worker puts some of the finishing touches on the mast.

As you can easily see in this photograph, the tail boom is constructed of built-up sheet with internal aluminum substructure.

What makes a helicopter a helicopter: the blades.

Each part is individually serial numbered, and its history is traced from the day it hits the factory floor.

Fuel tanks for different models await assembly.

A few examples of some of the beautiful machining that Robinson employees do at the Torrance plant.

Necessity is the mother of invention. Robinson produces many of its parts that only it could build reliably, or at all.

Workers put the finishing touches on subassemblies, here torquing down the retaining bolts.

A worker makes modifications to a Lycoming IO-540 bound for a Raven II.

Robinson even builds its own tugs for its helicopters.

Finished subassemblies await assembly as R44s move down the line.

The R44 can be bought as the Clipper II model with fixed or, shown here, pop out emergency floats.

Robinson gets the engines from Lycoming. Just about everything else aft and up is built in Torrance.

Engine mounts powder coated and ready for assembly.

Stock color coded and ready for picking.

With parts like this, how can a helicopter be made as light as Robinsons are?

Precision is the name of the game when building shafts for high-speed rotational applications.

A worker shaves shafts by hand in order to get an extremely exact line.

End of the day and a worker cleans his station for the next shift.

The console is put in early as part of the overall cabin construction.

Doors go together on the subassembly line.

A part getting drilled in the machine shop.

This came in as a solid core of stock and left as a finished part.

Hollow drilled shafts await further machining.

An R44 gets crated up for international delivery. The process, repeated hundreds of times a year, goes surprisingly fast.

Metal shavings come off of parts to be recycled and turned, maybe, into other helicopter parts.

R44 cabins await further assembly. Two people could easily pick up one of these structures.

Stock ready for milling.

Tail booms undergo assembly.

The process creates very strong and very light components, but it's hardly new. The same basic construction methods have been used in aircraft for around 100 years.

It's a simple approach. The internal ring structures are placed on a jig and then skins of various thicknesses are riveted to them, creating a superstrong and stiff structure.

These parts are ready for corrosion proofing prior to assembly.

Pretty, identical pulley wheels ready for the next step in the process.

Riveting the aft bulkhead into place.

Creating the structure for the cabin roof.

The business end of a Lycoming engine as installed in a Robinson helicopter. As you can see, there's a lot that needs to be done between the Lyc's point of exit and the rotor blades to create a functional helicopter.

Helicopters undergo final assembly in this hangar. Workers install controls, doors, rotor blades and interiors, preparing the ships for first flights.