AOPA Pilot Magazine - February 2012 - 84

Inspired by Lindbergh’s success, Corrigan became determined to someday emulate his hero and fly to Ireland, his ancestral homeland. In 1933 he purchased a derelict Curtiss OX–5 Robin for $325 for that purpose. In 1928, aviation pioneer Glenn Curtiss believed that the open-cockpit biplane had likely run its course and developed a closed-cabin monoplane, his first serious attempt to manufacture civilian aircraft. He called it the Robin, a continuation of his custom of naming aircraft after birds. The Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company built four examples at its Hammondsport, New York, factory and then established a new facility, the Curtiss-Robertson Airplane Manufacturing Company, near St. Louis. The first production Robin rolled off the assembly line there on August 7, 1928. It was a gentle airplane well-suited for flight training and became an immediate success. Paraphrasing Henry Ford and William Piper, the Robin could be purchased in any color as long as the wings were yellow, the fuselage burnt orange, and the trim black. The pilot sits alone in a wicker chair. He has plenty of side and head room, thanks to the boxy cross-section of the fuselage, a shape chosen for its ease of construction. Two passengers sit side by side behind him and are a bit squeezed. These rear seats, however, can be staggered slightly to provide each passenger with additional shoulder room.

An instructor can center himself on both rear seats and have access to a removable control stick, throttle, and rudder pedals. The Robin originally had three doors, one for each person, but the door on the left was eliminated on later models. There is a 25-gallon fuel tank in each wing, but total fuel load usually is limited to 30 gallons with three people on board. Early Robins were powered—that’s an overstatement—by the Curtiss OX-5, water-cooled, 90-horsepower, V-8 engine. It was the first mass-produced engine in the United States, and thousands had been built during the Great War. Curtiss still had 1,150 of them in inventory, as well as a large supply of parts. These were leftovers from when Curtiss built the Curtiss JN–4 “Jenny,” the ubiquitous U.S. Army trainer. It was also the least expensive engine on the market. At one time a brand-new OX–5 sold in the crate for only $20. OX-5s were so plentiful that they were used on a wide variety of postwar aircraft, including Walter Beech’s early Travel Air 2000, the Laird Swallow, the Waco 9, the American Eagle, and others. The OX-5 had a possibly undeserved reputation for unreliability because of the way it was maintained and the conditions in which it was operated. Eventually, though, the inventory of OX-5s became depleted, and subsequent models of the Robin were equipped with more powerful, more reliable radial engines. Starting an OX-5 can be an involved process: 1. Bang the 16 intake and exhaust

The wicker pilot’s chair (above) is uncomfortable, but satisfactory for short flights. The distinctive, forward-looking side windows that go almost to the floor help to compensate for poor over-the-nose visibility during ground operations. The narrow, 30-inch landing-gear tires are from an antique automobile.
AOPA PILOT •

84 • FEBRUARY

2012

AOPA Pilot Magazine - February 2012

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