Link Trainer, War Eagles Air Museum

Link Trainer - 1940s flight simulator

The Link flight simulator was a basic instrument trainer used in the 1940s to teach all phases of elementary and advanced instrument flying. This included radio navigation, radio range and loop orientation, instrument landing systems, voice procedure, and flight ad engine instrument familiarization.

Instrument flying (blind flying) is a means of keeping an airplane in the air, in normal flight position on a predetermined course, when the pilot has no visual contact with the earth. It depends entirely upon instruments to maintain normal flight positions and radio indications for navigation. The Link Trainer provided an effective, economical, and safe means of training a pilot the skills of  “instrument flying”.

Link Trainer technical data

• Basic instrument trainer, device 1-C4-1 (Navy)
• Single engine, radial, 450 to 600 horsepower
• 1945 model (link)
• Used for  blind flying without visual reference to the ground or the horizontal,
• fully instrumented for instrument attitude flight.
• Radio equipped for navigation using air traffic controls procedures,
• VHF communication radios, VOR (visual OMNI range), ILS (instrument Landing System), with glide slope, RMI (Radio Magnetic Indicator) .
• Radio compass - ADF (Automatic direction findings)

The Link Trainer flight simulator is on display at the War Eagles Air museum in Santa Teresa, New Mexico. Article is based on museum information. Photo credits: David and Paula Barnett.