Editing Link Trainer (section)

{{Short description|Early flight simulator}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=June 2020}}
[[File:Activities at Royal Naval Air Station Lee-on-solent, 13 To 17 September 1943 A19290.jpg|thumb|300px|right|Link trainer in use at a British Fleet Air Arm station in 1943]]
The term '''Link Trainer''', also known as the "Blue box" and "Pilot Trainer"<ref>Kelly 1970, p. 33.</ref> is commonly used to refer to a series of [[flight simulator]]s produced between the early 1930s and early 1950s by [[Link Aviation Devices]], founded and headed by [[Edwin Albert Link|Ed Link]], based on technology he pioneered in 1929 at his family's business in [[Binghamton, New York]]. During [[World War II]], they were used as a key pilot training aid by almost every combatant nation.

The original Link Trainer was created in 1929 out of the need for a safe way to teach new pilots how to fly by [[flight instruments|instruments]].  Ed Link used his knowledge of [[pump]]s, [[valve]]s and [[bellows]] gained at his father's [[Link Piano and Organ Company]] to create a flight simulator that responded to the pilot's controls and gave an accurate reading on the included instruments. More than 500,000 US pilots were trained on Link simulators,<ref name="ASME" /> as were pilots of nations as diverse as Australia, Canada, [[Nazi Germany|Germany]], New Zealand, United Kingdom, Israel, Japan, [[Pakistan]], and the [[USSR]]. Following WWII, Air Marshal [[Robert Leckie (RCAF officer)|Robert Leckie]] (wartime RAF Chief of Staff) said "The Luftwaffe met its Waterloo on all the training fields of the free world where there was a battery of Link Trainers".<ref name="Sky to Sea" />

The Link Flight Trainer has been designated as a [[List of Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmarks|Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark]] by the [[American Society of Mechanical Engineers]].<ref name="ASME">{{cite web |last1=De Angelo |first1=Joseph |title=The Link Flight Trainer |url=http://www.asme.org/wwwasmeorg/media/ResourceFiles/AboutASME/Who%20We%20Are/Engineering%20History/Landmarks/210-Link-C-3-Flight-Trainer.pdf |website=ASME |access-date=28 January 2019 |date=10 June 2000}}</ref> The Link Company, now the Link Simulation & Training division of CAE USA Defense & Security [[CAE Inc.]], continues to make aerospace simulators.<ref name="Link">[http://www.link.com/ "Link Company."] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120809082539/http://www.link.com/ |date=9 August 2012 }} ''link.com''. Retrieved: 20 February 2010.</ref>