Edwin Albert Link
Edwin Albert Link | |
---|---|
underwater archeologist; ocean engineer | |
Spouse | Marion Clayton Link |
Children | William Martin Link, Edwin Clayton Link |
Parent(s) | Edwin A. Link, Sr., Katherine Martin Link |
Edwin Albert Link (July 26, 1904 – September 7, 1981)[1] 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.[2][3] In total, he obtained more than 27 patents for aeronautics, navigation and oceanographic equipment.[4]
Early life
Edwin Link was born in Huntington, Indiana, in 1904, the son of Edwin A. Link, Sr., and Katherine (Martin) Link. In 1910, he moved with his family to Binghamton, New York.[1][2][5]
Aviation
Aviator
He took his first flying lesson in 1920.[6] In 1927, he obtained the first Cessna airplane ever delivered and eked out a living by barnstorming, charter flying and giving lessons.[6]
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.
Flight simulator
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."[6][7]
Much of the pneumatic system was adapted directly from technology used in the organ factory;[8] and, in the 1970s, Link used parts scavenged from an inoperative trainer to help rebuild a Link pipe organ.
Link Aeronautical Corporation
He formed the Link Aeronautical Corporation in 1929 to manufacture the trainers.[6] His few early customers were amusement parks, not flight training schools; the early models served as amusement rides.[6] Finally, in 1934, the United States Army Air Corps bought six.[6] During World War II, more than half a million airmen were taught using the Link Trainer.[9] In 2000 the Link Trainer was placed on the List of Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmarks.
Link Aviation
Together with his wife Marion Clayton Link, whom he had married in 1931, Edwin Link managed the very successful Link Aviation, Inc.
The Link Foundation
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.[3][4]
Undersea interests
Man-in-Sea project
After Link sold his company to
Submersibles
In March 1967, Link launched Deep Diver, the first small submersible designed for lockout diving, allowing divers to leave and enter the craft while underwater.[2][13] Deep Diver carried out many scientific missions in 1967 and 1968, including a 430-foot (130 m) lockout dive in 1967 (at the same location as the 1964 Sténuit-Lindbergh dive) and a 700-foot (210 m) lockout dive near Great Stirrup Cay in 1968. Dr. MacInnis participated in both of these dives as an observer in Deep Diver's forward chamber.[13][18][19]
Later in 1968, after Deep Diver had been requisitioned by the United States Navy to help search for the lost submarine USS Scorpion, the Bureau of Ships determined that Deep Diver was unsafe for use at great depths or in extremely cold temperatures because of the substitution of the wrong kind of steel, which became brittle in cold water, in some parts of the sub.[13] Link proceeded to design a new lockout sub with a distinctive acrylic bubble as the forward pilot/observer compartment. In January 1971 the new sub was launched and commissioned to the Smithsonian Institution. It was named the Johnson Sea Link after its donors, Link and his friend John Seward Johnson I.[2][13]
Death of son
In June 1973, Link's 31-year-old son, Edwin Clayton Link, and another diver, 51-year-old Albert D. Stover, died during a scheduled dive off
Death
Edwin Link died in his sleep on September 7, 1981, in Binghamton, New York,[1] where he had been undergoing treatment for cancer.[2]
Honors
Link was awarded the Howard N. Potts Medal[3] in 1945 for developing training devices for aviators, and the Royal Aeronautical Society Wakefield Gold Medal in 1947.[23] He received an honorary degree from Syracuse University in 1966[24] and Binghamton University in 1981.[25] In 1976, he was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame.[6]
In 1992, Link was inducted into the International Air & Space Hall of Fame at the San Diego Air & Space Museum.[26]
Link donated $6 million dollars to build the engineering building on the campus of Syracuse University. The Edwin A. Link Hall of Engineering was dedicated in presence of Link and his family on October 16, 1970.[24][27][28][29] It currently houses offices, classrooms and laboratories of the Syracuse University College of Engineering and Computer Science.
From the early 1980s to the 1990s, what is now Greater Binghamton Airport was named Edwin A. Link Field-Broome County Airport his honor,[3]. The field is still named after Link, and there is an original "Blue Box" on display in the terminal.
The Link Building at Florida Institute of Technology (Melbourne, FL) is named for Edwin A. Link inventor of the Link Trainer and co-founder of the Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution. A display of an original Link Trainer can be seen in the College of Aeronautics’ Skurla Hall, a two-minute walk from the Link Building.
References
- ^ a b c d "Edwin Albert Link - A Chronological Biography". Binghamton University Libraries. Archived from the original on 2012-03-17. Retrieved 2011-12-29.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Clark, Martha; Eichelberger, Jeanne. "Edwin A. Link 1904-1981". Binghamton University Libraries. Archived from the original on 2012-03-17. Retrieved 2012-06-06.
- ^ a b c d e "A Biographical Sketch OF Edwin A. Link". Florida Tech Evans Library. Archived from the original on 2011-10-02. Retrieved 2011-08-26.
- ^ a b "Link Foundation Information". Link Foundation. Archived from the original on 2011-07-27. Retrieved 2011-08-26.
- ^ a b "Binghamton Univ. Libraries: Edwin A. Link". Binghamton University Libraries. 2011-02-15. Archived from the original on 2011-07-19. Retrieved 2011-08-26.
- ^ a b c d e f g "Edwin Link: Innovator/Inventor/Industrialist". National Aviation Hall of Fame. Retrieved August 27, 2012.
- ^ US patent no.1825462A, (held by Edwin A. Link Jr.), dated 29 September 1931, for a "Combination training device for student aviators and entertainment apparatus ".
- ^ "Link Trainer Restoration". starksravings.com. Retrieved 2011-08-31.
- ISBN 0-309-03482-5. Retrieved August 27, 2012.
- ^ "History - L-3 Link Simulation & Training". Archived from the original on 2017-06-06. Retrieved 2016-09-09.
- ^ National Geographic. 123 (5). Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society: 718–731.
- ^ LCCN 66-10428.
- ^ LCCN 72-93801.
- ^ LCCN 2001018840.
- ^ Link, Edwin A. (April 1965). "Outpost Under the Ocean". National Geographic. 127 (4). Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society: 530–533.
- ^ a b Sténuit, Robert (April 1965). "The Deepest Days". National Geographic. 127 (4). Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society: 534–547.
- ^ LCCN 75-680.
- ^ MacLeish, Kenneth (January 1968). "A Taxi for the Deep Frontier: Project Man-in-Sea Goes Mobile". National Geographic. 133 (1). Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society: 138–150.
- ^ MacInnis, pp. 91-103.
- ^ "Science: Tragedy Under the Sea". Time. 1973-07-02. Archived from the original on December 14, 2008. Retrieved 2011-08-26.
- LCCN 62-4818.
- ISBN 1-55821-663-4.
- ^ "R.Ae.S. Medals and Prizes". Flight. 51 (2005): 500. 29 May 1947. Retrieved 30 August 2013.
- ^ .
- ^ "Honorary Degree Recipients". Binghamton University, State University of New York. 9 April 2012. Archived from the original on 19 March 2013. Retrieved 23 May 2012.
- ISBN 978-1-57864-397-4.
- .
- ^ "Link Hall". answers.syr.edu. Retrieved 28 December 2020.
- .
Bibliography
- Hellwarth, Ben (2012). Sealab: America's Forgotten Quest to Live and Work on the Ocean Floor. LCCN 2011015725.
- Link, Marion Clayton (1973). Windows in the Sea. ISBN 0-87474-130-0.
- ISBN 0-396-07142-2.
- LCCN 66-10428.
- van Hoek, Susan; Link, Marion Clayton (2003). From Sky to Sea: A Story of Edwin A. Link. ISBN 0-941332-27-6.