BOTH ROBINSON AND COFFEY KNEW THERE WERE MANY BLACK Americans who wanted to learn to fly and that the field of aviation was all but closed to them. They decided they should provide a school for black pilots. The question was how. You could not start a flying school without a plane. True, they both had paying jobs, but all of Robinson’s and Coffey’s savings had gone to pay for advanced flying lessons. They were living paycheck to paycheck.
Fortune helped solve the problem. John read a newspaper advertisement by a car salesman named Abbott. The ad stated, “Airplane taken in on trade for sale.” John Robinson knew a thing or two about trading automobiles.
Abbott, a pilot himself, did not expect a black man to reply to his ad and at first did not take Robinson seriously. As with everything else concerning aviation, John was persistent. He had a Hudson sedan that he had completely rebuilt. John took Coffey with him to see Abbott. The car salesman inspected the Hudson, raised the hood, started the engine, and drove the car around the block.
“It’s a nice car,” he told them, “but I can’t trade even for the airplane.”
Robinson asked, “What kind of plane is it?”
Abbott answered, “It’s a White Hummingbird.”
“I’ve never heard of such a plane. Let’s go out and see it.”
The three of them climbed in the Hudson and drove out to the Chicago Airpark (later called Chicago Metropolitan Airport, and, later still, Midway Airport) where the plane was kept. They found it in the back of a hangar, rolled it out, and inspected it. They started the engine and ran it for a few minutes. It had a surplus OX5 engine from the Great War just like the one Robinson had fixed for the barnstormer’s Jenny and the one in Robert Williamson’s WACO-9 at Willow Run.
John asked, “The Hudson and how much more?”
Abbott replied, “How much you boys have?”
John, who had the car but no cash, looked at Coffey. Coffey said he had two hundred dollars. Robinson turned to Abbott. “The car and two hundred dollars, and you give each of us a one-hour checkout in the plane. Take it or leave it.”
Abbott scratched his head. “I don’t know . . .”
“Hell,” Robinson interrupted, “who else would buy an off-brand airplane as ugly as that one?”
Abbott walked up and down, looking first at the Hudson, then at the plane. Finally he walked back to them. “Okay, boys. Give me the keys to the Hudson and the two hundred bucks.”
Ironically, the White Hummingbird, a biplane that seated two in the front cockpit, was painted black. It was slow, a handful to recover from a spin, which it was prone to do if handled sloppily, but it flew. Robinson and Coffey had their first plane and their first partnership together. The John Robinson School of Aviation1 was soon to follow. One of the first students to apply to the school was a nineteen-year-old named Harold Hurd, who, it turned out, already had experienced basic training. Hurd, exhibiting some of the same persistence as Robinson, had talked a white instructor at the Chicago Air Park into giving him a few flying lessons at a price twice what he charged white students. It seems the only time available for Hurd’s lessons was in the morning at first light. It was obvious that the instructor picked that time of day so no one would likely discover that he was giving lessons to a black man. The instructor took Hurd’s money for lessons, but refused to solo him, arguing, “it would be bad for business.”
When John met Harold Hurd, he took an immediate liking to him. In turn, Hurd grew to look upon Robinson almost as a big brother. Robinson allowed Hurd to tag along with him in the air if he had an extra seat, as well as on the ground. Hurd once heard one of Johnny’s girlfriends complain, “Why do you always have to bring that kid along?”
Hurd recalls one incident that well illustrates the problems facing black pilots and students of aviation during the twenties and thirties: “On one occasion, Robinson agreed to check me out in an International OX5 biplane. When we took off, the International had less than a third of a tank of fuel. At the time, the Robbins Airport did not have aviation fuel facilities. Although the International had enough fuel for a checkout flight in the area of Robbins Airfield, John decided to let me fly to Ashburn Field so they could fill up the tank before returning to Robbins. (Ashburn was the oldest airfield in Chicago. It was often visited by Lindbergh and other great aviators of the day.) After landing at Ashburn, we taxied up to the fuel pump. When the attendant came out and discovered that the flyers were black, he informed us in no uncertain terms that Ashburn Field was closed to coloreds. He flat refused to sell us any gasoline. We were low on fuel, but had little choice but to take off since the ground crew and a couple of pilots hanging around were openly hostile toward us. We barely managed to reach Chicago Airpark. They allowed us to buy fuel.”
But despite the refusals he received and racism he faced, by persevering and pursuing his aviation dreams John Robinson was helping to break down barriers and to establish a legacy that would eventually open the way for black flyers to enter service in the Army Air Corps.
1 Coffey was often overheard calling it the Coffey School of Aviation. Though he later had a school of his own, some modern articles list Coffey’s name erroneously as Cornelius Robinson Coffey