"Link" Trainer


Time on "Link" trainer, while at No.82 O.T.U.
    Ted Barris : "The Link trainer and its inventor, Edwin Albert Link, might never have enjoyed the prominence they did had it not been for the near desperate need of the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan in late 1939. Edwin Link had grown up during the 1920's in Binghamton, New York. Half the time he worked in his father's organ and piano factory, the other half he learned how to fly. But flying lessons were very expensive at the time - $25 an hour. So, in 1929, Link patented a cockpit-like contraption with a simulated instrument panel and control stick, all of which floated on a set of organ bellows he had borrowed from his father's factory."

A trainee could crash a Link Tainer again and again without hurting himself or expensive Government equipment.  Often the Link  was used to weed out pilot candidates with little aptitude for flying.

    also noted: "Dual Time" ie flying plane while accompanied by senior pilot.
       3:30 hrs on a Wellington at No.82 O.T.U. and
    1:00 hrs on a Halifax at No. 1659 C.U.