LINK TRAINER AT TAIERI

Southland Times, Issue 24108, 23 April 1940, Page 6

LINK TRAINER AT TAIERI

Valuable Invention

ASSISTANCE FOR NEW PILOTS One of the most valuable of the modern inventions for the training of pilots, the Link trainer, has been installed at the Royal New Zealand Air Force Station at the Taieri. It is similar to those now in use at northern stations and its arrival last week will allow recruits at the Taieri station to receive intensive training in instrument and night flying before they leave the safety of the ground, says The Otago Daily Times.

The Link trainer, which is the invention of a Canadian, is a small snubnosed plane nine or 10 feet long, and rather resembles a unit of an amusement device at a carnival, but its toylike appearance belies its efficiency and usefulness. The cockpit contains all the instruments so essential to the modern machine for safe flying and accurate navigation. The little plane answers to the touch of the controls in the same manner as a machine in the air. It banks, turns, dives and climbs—in fact it does everything but a roll or a loop; but it never leaves the floor of the building in which it is housed. The pilot who takes this trainer up for a “spin” has his course plotted on a chart by a sensitive instrument which lies on a nearby table. A reporter who saw the Link trainer in use was told that a pupil, after training in the machine, could take up a real plane and navigate it efficiently, doing everything but, perhaps, a landing—provided he could not see out of the plane. That is the difference. The Link trainer has a covered-in cockpit and pupils learn to fly in it solely by the use of instruments, having no horizon or ground below them by which to gauge their height, speed or direction. Such distractions might tend to upset a pilot who had done his training solely in the trainer. A REAL COCKPIT The Link trainer, however, is not meant to take the place of a real machine, but it gives valuable assistance in the training of pilots in instrument or “blind” flying. The cockpit of the machine is identical with that of a real aeroplane. Besides the control column, throttle and rudder bar, it contains such necessary instruments as an air speed indicator, a turn and bank indicator, a sensitive altimeter, a vertical speed indicator which gives the speed at which a plane is losing or gaining height, an engine revolution indicator, an artificial, “horizon” and a direction indicator. Even the compass, which, in a plane, is normally affected by the pull of the magnetic poles, has been fitted with a small magnetic coil to provide that pull so that a pilot may learn how to correct the errors. When sitting in the Link trainer, a pilot communicates with an instructor, who sits at a control table, by means of headphones. The instructor tells the pupil just what to do as he takes off for a “flight,” and he is able to correct faults as they occur, while the pilot's course is traced out on a chart so that he may see afterwards where he went wrong. His sensations while piloting the trainer are very similar to those in a real plane, except that he is not affected by speed. A throttle enables him to “travel” up to 250 miles an hour, however, and a small lever, operated by the instructor, even provides the pupil with the sensations experienced when his machine strikes a bump or air pocket.