Editing Link Trainer (section)

==History==

===Origins===
[[Edwin Albert Link|Edwin Link]] had developed a passion for flying in his boyhood years, but was not able to afford the high cost of flying lessons. So, upon leaving school in 1927, he started developing a simulator. The project took him 18 months. His first pilot trainer, which debuted in 1929, resembled an overgrown toy airplane from the outside, with short wooden wings and fuselage mounted on a universal joint. Organ bellows from the Link organ factory, the business his family owned and operated in Binghamton, New York, driven by an electric pump, made the trainer pitch and roll as the pilot worked the controls.<ref name="NMUSAF">{{cite web |title=Fact Sheet |url=http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet_print.asp?fsID=3371 |website=National Museum of the US Air Force |access-date=16 August 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120124230852/http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet_print.asp?fsID=3371 |archive-date=24 January 2012}}</ref>

Link's first military sales came as a result of the [[Air Mail scandal]], when the [[United States Army Air Corps|Army Air Corps]] took over carriage of [[U.S. Air Mail]]. Twelve pilots were killed in a 78-day period due to their unfamiliarity with [[Instrument Flight Rules|Instrument Flying Conditions]]. The large scale loss of life prompted the Air Corps to look at a number of solutions, including Link's pilot trainer. The Air Corps was given a stark demonstration of the potential of instrument training when, in 1934, Link flew in to a meeting in conditions of fog that the Air Corps evaluation team regarded as unflyable.<ref name="NMUSAF"/> As a result, the Air Corps ordered the first six pilot trainers on 23 June 1934 for $3,500 each. In 1936, the more advanced Model C was introduced.<ref name="TTF">{{cite book |last1=Hancock Cameron |first1=Rebecca |title=Training to Fly: Military Flight Training, 1907–1945 |date=1999 |publisher=Air Force History and Museums Program |url=http://media.defense.gov/2010/Dec/02/2001329902/-1/-1/0/training_to_fly-2.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191103213107/https://media.defense.gov/2010/Dec/02/2001329902/-1/-1/0/training_to_fly-2.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-date=3 November 2019 |access-date=3 November 2019}}</ref><ref>{{cite magazine |title=New Link Trainer |magazine=Aviation |publisher=McGraw-Hill Publishing Company |date=September 1936 |volume=35 |issue=9 |pages=37, 40 |url=http://archive.org/details/Aviation_Week_1936-09-01/page/n18 |accessdate=16 August 2021}}</ref>

American Airlines became the first commercial airline to purchase a Link trainer in 1937.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Page |first1=Ray L. |title=Brief History of Flight Simulation |page=4|citeseerx=10.1.1.132.5428 }}</ref> Prior to World War II, Link trainers were also sold to the U.S. Navy, Civil Aeronautics Administration, Germany, Japan, England, Russia, France, and Canada.<ref>{{cite web |last1=McIntosh |first1=David M. |title=The Evolution of Instrument Flying in the U.S. Army |url=http://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a194001.pdf |website=Defense Technical Information Center |access-date=29 January 2019 |page=25 |date=April 1988 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191101162824/https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a194001.pdf |archive-date=1 November 2019 |url-status=live }}</ref>

===World War II===
[[File:LinkTrainerSeymourIndiana.jpg|thumb|right|Link Trainer at Freeman Field, Seymour, Indiana. Freeman Field was a US Army Air Force field in World War II.]]
Link and his company had struggled through the Depression years, but after gaining Air Corps interest the business expanded rapidly and during World War II, the AN-T-18 Basic Instrument Trainer, known to tens of thousands of fledgling pilots as the "Blue Box" (although it was painted in different colors in other countries), was standard equipment at every air training school in the United States and Allied nations. During the war years, Link produced over 10,000 Blue Boxes, turning one out every 45 minutes.<ref name="Link"/><ref name="Sky to Sea">{{cite book|last1=Van Hoek|first1=Susan|last2=Link|first2=Marion Clayton|title=From Sky to Sea, A Story of Edwin Link|date=1993|publisher=Best Publishing Co.|location=Flagstaff, AZ|isbn=0941332276|edition=2nd}}</ref>

During World War II, Link trainers were sometimes run by women.<ref>{{citation |title=Corinne Phillips Heads Colonnade Link Department |url=http://commons.erau.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1149&context=fly-paper |access-date=3 November 2019 |work=Embry-Riddle Fly Paper |volume=VI |issue=17 |publisher=Embry-Riddle Company |date=13 August 1943 |page=4}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|last=BIGGERSTAFF|first=VALERIE|title=Carolyn Thompson, WWII Link Training Instructor|url=https://www.appenmedia.com/opinion/opinion-carolyn-thompson-wwii-link-training-instructor/article_152bc0aa-b74b-11eb-90aa-4b9aa9d2d600.html|access-date=2021-05-22|website=Appen Media|language=en}}</ref>