TRAINING AIR PILOTS

Press, Volume LXXV, Issue 22850, 25 October 1939, Page 7

TRAINING AIR PILOTS

MODERN DEVICE AT WIGRAM VALUE FOR INSTRUMENT FLYING PRACTICE The addition of a modern American training device known as the Link trainer to the equipment at Wigram and certain other Air Force stations of the Dominion, has proved of marked value in the training of pilots, according to advice received by yesterday. The trainer was installed at Wigram some months ago- , , The t.ink trainer, which does not leave the ground, resembles a small hooded aeroplane and is fixed to a base. It can rotate through 360 degrees and has a longitudinal and lat eral angle of movement of 50 degrees, and its chief use is in training P ll to fly by instruments which record for the trainee the reactions of .an aeroplane to various manoeuvres. .. . A covered cockpit enables the pilot to undergo blind /‘flying, though hj is of course, in constant touch with an instructor seated, in the. same room in which the machine is installed. The operation is usually by electric motor controlling a vacuum tobme which actuates a series of bellows which are affected by movement of the control column and rudder bar by a system of-valves. In response to the movements the trainer climbs, banks, tons, dives and spins as an aeroplane would do. Bumpy air conditions can be eimuinstrument board in the cockpit contains a wide range, including air speed indicator, bank and turn indicator, vertical speed indicator, directional gyroscope, artificial horizon, altimeter, and engine revolution mdicator as well as normal wireless and engine controls. Two-way wireless communication between trainee and instructor is also proviued. In the equipment there is even a recorder marking on a chart the .course flown, the lapse of time, and distance

travelled. ■