14-April 1929 – Edwin Link Launches the Link Trainer

Link Trainer Launched 4/14/1929, a 25-year-old man from NY introduced his latest invention to the world. Ed Link worked for his family’s organ and piano company, and had wanted to pursue flying, but due to the high cost, he could not afford to do so. After dropping out of school, he started working on an invention to fuel his aviation passion and 18 months later, he’d built a flight simulator that used air pumps from organs to create pitch, roll, and vibration for stall buffeting for his weird looking stubby wing plywood “airplane”. It was first sold to amusement parks, but after the US Army Air Corps took over the US Mail flying routes and lost 12 pilots in the span of 78 days due to not being able to flying “IFR”, or instrument flight rules, they purchased 5 Link Trainers in 1934 at the cost of $3,400 each. Link would go on to produce over 10,000 Link Trainers and it’s estimated that over half a million pilots in WWII were trained to fly on instruments. Another invention of Link was creating the first aerial advertising plane by using a player piano roll to light up lights on the underside of a fuselage to spell words as well as he installed organ pipes to attract more attention with the loud music. The Link Trainer is on the list of USA Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmarks.
Before and during WWII, Britain had restrictions on buying war goods from non-Commonwealth countries. Link realized that business would only increase if he had a plant in Canada. He owned an island east of Gananoque (pronounced “Gan-an-ock-way”), Perch Island, and frequently flew from Binghamton in his amphibious plane to his cottageBefore and during WWII, Britain had restrictions on buying war goods from non-Commonwealth countries. Over 5,000 Link Trainers were built in Gananoque and with over 200 employees it was one of the town’s most-important businesses