Learning Center Our Enshrinees

Edwin Albert Link

• Started his aviation career by barnstorming, charter flying and as a flight instructor.
• Built his first airplane simulator in 1929 and taught his brother to fly in it.
• Formed the Link Aeronautical Corporation and built his “Pilot Maker” trainer to make flight training affordable for everyone. He then began his own school using the trainer.
• Formed Link Aviation, Incorporated in 1934 to manufacture flight training equipment.
• Became swamped with orders of his basic trainer, called the “Blue Box,” during World War II. The armed forces would eventually use this trainer to teach wartime instrument flying, aerial gunnery, bombing, navigation, automatic pilot and radar operation to a half-million airmen.
• His advanced gunnery and navigation trainers gave rise to the first jet bomber simulator. Later, sophisticated electronics and digital computers were added and eventually led to simulators in which the astronauts in the United States’ Space Program trained.
• Merged his company with General Precision Equipment Corporation and became its president in 1958.