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 mechanically moving simulator from the 1920s used for WWII instrument flight training.
The Link Trainer featured a primitive instrument panel, a cramped cockpit, and an unconventional instrument layout that challenged the author's instrument scan and control.
The training session was unexpectedly cut short due to a mechanical failure (a broken yaw belt), highlighting the challenges of maintaining such historical equipment which requires custom-made parts.
The experience underscored how adding physical movement and a non-standard instrument presentation in simulators like the Link Trainer significantly increases the difficulty of instrument flying compared to modern desktop programs.

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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.