page_title: Edwin Albert Link
section_title: Aviation
hierarchical_section_title: Edwin Albert Link / Aviation
caption_attribution_description: English: Link Trainer at the Western Canada Aviation Museum.
context_page_description: Edwin Albert Link was an American inventor, entrepreneur and pioneer in aviation, underwater archaeology, and submersibles. He invented the flight simulator, which was called the "Blue Box" or "Link Trainer". It was commercialized in 1929, starting a now multibillion-dollar industry. In total, he obtained more than 27 patents for aeronautics, navigation and oceanographic equipment.
context_section_description: He took his first flying lesson in 1920. In 1927, he obtained the first Cessna airplane ever delivered and eked out a living by barnstorming, charter flying and giving lessons.
  As a young man, Edwin Link used apparatus from his father's automatic piano and organ factory (of the Link Piano and Organ Company) to produce an advertising airplane. A punched roll and pneumatic system from a player piano controlled sequential lights on the lower surfaces of the wings to spell out messages like "ENDICOTT-JOHNSON SHOES". To attract more attention, he added a set of small but loud organ pipes, also controlled by the roll.
  In the 1920s, he developed the Link Trainer, "a fuselage-like device with a cockpit and controls that produced the motions and sensations of flying."
  Much of the pneumatic system was adapted directly from technology used in the organ factory. (In the 1970s, Link used parts scavenged from an inoperative trainer to help rebuild a Link pipe organ.) He formed the Link Aeronautical Corporation in 1929 to manufacture the trainers. His few early customers were amusement parks, not flight training schools; the early models served as amusement rides. Finally, in 1934, the United States Army Air Corps bought six. During World War II, more than half a million airmen were taught using the Link Trainer. In 2000 the Link Trainer was placed on the List of Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmarks.
  Together with his wife Marion Clayton Link, whom he had married in 1931, Edwin Link managed the very successful Link Aviation, Inc.  He contributed a great deal to the Binghamton, New York area, where he set up a production facility that at one time employed thousands of workers.  Although the company later passed through different ownership, its legacy can be traced to the current L3Harris division known as Link Training and Simulation, now headquartered in Arlington, Texas (though it still maintains some operations in Binghamton).
  In 1953, Edwin and Marion Link established The Link Foundation. The foundation continues to provide grants and fellowships in aeronautics, simulation and training, ocean engineering, energy, and organizations of interest to the Links.
caption: Link Trainer at the Western Canada Aviation Museum
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