MANAGEMENT IN AVIATION HISTORY BENCH MARKS Link patented his trainer, which he called the “Pilot
Maker,” in 1929. Before it caught on as a serious fl ight- training machine, Link adapted his simulator for use at amusement parks. Children slipped coins into a slot to begin the pitch and yaw movements of the “toy airplane.” Park and Kelly described the importance of the “Pilot Maker” after it was purchased by the US Army Air Corps in 1934:
“Originally used as an instrument trainer for the instruction of Army mail-carrying pilots for all-weather fl ights, its full potential as a ‘plane that fl ies on the ground’ became apparent when, with the outbreak of WWII, the Army was faced with the task of teaching thousands of men to fl y as quickly as possible. The young Link Aviation Company turned out the ‘blue boxes’ that were used to train more than half a million airmen throughout the world.“
It was the beginning of Link’s successful
simulators, which adapted and mimicked jets, jet bombers, helicopters, airborne gunnery and everything that followed in the progression of aerospace. In 1970, with unabashed appreciation, astronaut Alan B. Shepard Jr. wrote, “Simulators are helping to develop a safer and more carefully planned program for accomplishing our future goals in air and space.” More than 40 years later, it is diffi cult to fi nd any aspect of modern piloting that is not linked (pardon the pun) to some type of simulator.
Link continued to perfect his inventions at the head of several companies for decades. He pioneered simulator design in upper space, inner space and eventually, as Shepard predicted, outer space. Link died at age 77 in Binghamton. Among inventors all over the world, the man who created the “the plane that fl ew on the ground” is remembered as the father of fl ight simulation.
Giacinta Bradley Koontz is an aviation historian, magazine columnist and author who has received the DAR History Medal and Honorable Mention from the New York Book Festival. She has appeared on the History Channel and in PBS documentaries. For more information, visit
www.GiaBKoontz.com.
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The North American Museum of Flight Simulation is expected to open in 2015 at Boundary Bay Airport in British Columbia, Canada. Ready to move from storage and put on display is this Link D4 fl ight simu- lator in the familiar blue paint scheme. Photo: North American Museum of Flight Simulation.
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