Link Flight Simulator - Peterborough Ontario - Preserved Machines on Public Display on Waymarking.com

The controls from a Link Flight Simulator sit on display inside the Peterborough Airport Terminal. There is an sign with the display and it reads:

Edwin A. Link, invented the Link flight simulator used to train pilots and other airmen under instrument flying. The original Link Trainer was created in 1929 out of the need for a safe way to teach new pilots how to fly by instruments. A former organ and nickelodeon builder, Link used his knowledge of pumps, valves and bellows to create a flight simulator that responded to the pilot's controls and gave an accurate reading on the included instruments.

Mr. Link patented this flight simulation training device under the name "pilot maker." It was first used in amusement parks, but no one really paid attention to it until 1934 when the Army Air Corps was suddenly called on to carry mail and was lacking experienced pilots. When nearly a dozen Army pilots, who had been trained to fly watching the ground, were killed in one week, the Air Corps began to buy the Link trainers.

In an interview in 1958, Mr. Link estimated that his flight simulator had been used in training more than two million airmen, including 500,000 pilots during World War II. The Link Simulator used during the war was known as the AN-T-18-Basic Instrument Trainer, called the "Blue Box" by fledgling pilots. It was standard equipment at every air-training school in the United States and Allied countries.

After the war, every advance in planes and missiles employed new Link trainers for jet fighters and bombers, and in transpolar celestial navigation.

You can read more about the Link Flight Simulator here:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Link_Trainer (visit link)
www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WMGZXG_First_Flight_Simulator (visit link)

Type of Machine: Link Flight Simulator (partial) Year the machine was built: Not listed Year the machine was put on display: Not listed Is there online documentation for this machine: Not listed

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