The Link Trainer: An Uncommanded Roll Gets Our Author's Attention

The Link Trainer: An Uncommanded Roll Gets Our Author’s Attention

Meg Godlewski

Friday, September 16, 2022 at 05:38 PM ET

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The 1940s-era Link Trainer was used by thousands of pilot trainees. [Photo: Meg Godlewski]

Key Takeaways:

The author experienced a rare flight in a recently restored Link Trainer, a historically significant flight simulator from the 1920s extensively used in WWII for instrument flight training.
The Link Trainer operates through mechanical systems like vacuum tubes, bellows, and pulleys to simulate aircraft movement, contrasting sharply with modern advanced aviation training devices.
The flight highlighted the Link Trainer's primitive instrument panel layout and large controls, which presented unique challenges for instrument scanning and aircraft control compared to contemporary simulators.
During the maiden post-restoration flight, a mechanical failure occurred (a yaw-actuating leather belt broke), emphasizing the difficulty and custom effort required to maintain such an antique training device.

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I have logged in excess of 3,000 hours in a Redbird FMX Advanced Aviation Training Device. These are the devices that are mounted on cradles that provide the unit with pitch, yaw, and roll. One of the biggest surprises for the trainees who have been “flying” using the Microsoft Flight Simulator program and then try to fly the FMX is how quickly their instrument scan and aircraft control goes askance when the dimension of movement is added to the equation.

I was thinking about this yesterday when I climbed into a Link Trainer at the Museum of Flight Restoration Center at Snohomish County Airport/Paine Field (KPAE). For the unfamiliar, the Link Trainer was designed in the 1920s by Edwin Link of Binghamton, New York. During World War II, Link trainers were used extensively to train pilots to fly by instruments.