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 newly restored, vintage Link Trainer, a mechanical flight simulator from the 1920s used extensively for WWII instrument training.
The Link Trainer's primitive instruments and unique cockpit layout presented significant challenges for instrument scanning and control compared to modern simulators.
The training session was unexpectedly cut short due to a mechanical failure (a failed yaw belt), highlighting the difficulties of maintaining such antique equipment which requires custom-made replacement parts.

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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.