Beginning with the Wright Brothers first successful aircraft in 1903, there has been a need for training pilots without risking the pilots lives and an aircraft in the process.  In 1910, the French commanders Clolus and Laffont and Lieutenant Clavenad, built the first aircraft ground training device, the "Tonneau Antoinette" (Antoinette barrel).  Thus, began the precursor of flight trainers and ultimately simulators.

An early flight simulator, the Ruggles Orientator. 

A flight trainer is a ground-based device that mimics aircraft flight. The most successful early flight trainer was the “Link Trainer”, produced by Edwin Link in Binghamton, New York, starting in 1929. The Link Trainer is a basic metal frame flight trainer usually painted in its well-known blue color. 

Edwin Link's portrait for SDASM's International Air and Space Hall of Fame. 

Edwin Link, among other accomplishments in the organ and piano business, was also a fledgling pilot.  Dissatisfied with the amount of actual flight training time available, he decided to build a ground-based device to provide such training without the restrictions of weather and the availability of aircraft and flight instructors. His design had a pneumatic motion platform driven by inflatable bellows (similar to those used in organs), which provided pitch (nose up and down) and roll (wing up or down) cues.  A vacuum motor (used in player piano’s), rotated the platform, providing yaw (nose left and right) cues.  A generic replica cockpit with workinginstruments was mounted on top of the motion platform. When the cockpit was covered, pilots could practice flying by instruments in a safe environment. 

The Link Trainer in action.

Initially, neither aviation flight schools nor the military showed much interest in "Link Trainers" and they were marketed in amusement parks.  The situation changed in 1934 when the Army Air Force was given a government contract to fly postal mail. This included having to fly in bad weather, which the USAAF did not train for at the time.  During the first weeks of mail service, nearly a dozen Army pilots were killed.  The AAF remembered Ed Link and his trainer and asked for a demonstration.  Link flew himself in to meet the Army Brass at Newark Field in New Jersey.  They were impressed by his ability to ‘fly-in’ on a day with poor visibility; this due to his practice on his Link Trainer. The USAAF purchased six Link Trainers, and started the flight simulation industry.

Soon the capabilities of the “Pilot-Maker” became appreciated and the “Link” would be used in the training more than 500,000 pilots worldwide; in basic flying, instrument flying, instrument navigation and radio procedures. Over 10,000 links were built between 1929 and 1972. 

SDASM's link trainer.  The origin of the Museum’s Link Trainer is unknown.