Wartime Simulators
Demonstrating the Link Trainer
Advertisement for the Link Trainer
The Link Trainer taught pilots how to navigate almost exclusively through the plane's instruments and radio. Link believed that forcing pilots to rely on their instruments would prevent accidents caused by inclement weather or sudden losses of visibility from the cockpit when they trained with real planes.
Ed Link marketed his designs in Europe and Asia throughout the 1930s. However, he was not granted an audience with U.S. military officials until a series of aviation accidents killed several Army Air Corps mail carriers in 1934. Link was then able to demonstrate his trainer as a safe and efficient alternative to jumpstart aviation training - features that would become crucially important for pilots around the world, as the end of the decade brought with it the outbreak of World War II.
The bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 marked the entrance of the United States into World War II. American industries increased the speed and scale of their production lines, pivoting to ammunitions, vehicle parts, and other war necessities. Link Aviation, Inc., a new company jointly owned by Ed and his brother George Link, were called to produce flight Trainers and other instruments to prepare American pilots. Over 10,000 Link Trainers had taught over 500,000 pilots to fly by the end of the war.
To see more inventions produced by Ed Link during this period, check out his Inventions During the War Era!
Exterior shot of a Link factory
Factory Floor
Assembly Department