WEBVTT - TechStuff Tidbits: The First Flight Simulator 0:00:04.360 --> 0:00:12.239 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there, 0:00:12.280 --> 0:00:15.480 and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. 0:00:15.520 --> 0:00:18.599 I'm an executive producer with iHeartRadio. And how the tech 0:00:18.680 --> 0:00:21.720 are you. It's time for a tech Stuff tidbits episode. 0:00:21.760 --> 0:00:24.000 Been a while since we've done one of those, and 0:00:24.160 --> 0:00:28.880 this one's all about the first light simulator. And you know, 0:00:28.920 --> 0:00:31.479 we use computers to do a lot of stuff, and 0:00:31.720 --> 0:00:33.839 a lot of the stuff we do with computers is 0:00:34.040 --> 0:00:38.720 super cool. Now a lot of it is super uncool too, 0:00:39.000 --> 0:00:41.839 but we're gonna focus on the cool bits for this episode. 0:00:42.479 --> 0:00:46.240 And while I can't point at any one use case 0:00:46.320 --> 0:00:50.280 of computers as my favorite, like I can't say using 0:00:50.280 --> 0:00:55.240 computers to do this is my absolute favorite use simulations 0:00:55.400 --> 0:00:58.160 have to be way up there. So for a computer 0:00:58.240 --> 0:01:00.520 to simulate anything, it has to take a lot of 0:01:00.560 --> 0:01:04.440 factors into account. A really good simulation won't just figure 0:01:04.440 --> 0:01:07.560 out how these factors will impact whatever it is you're simulating, 0:01:08.160 --> 0:01:11.520 it'll also figure out how the factors influence each other. 0:01:11.640 --> 0:01:15.480 So when you talk about stuff like weather simulations, computer 0:01:15.520 --> 0:01:19.160 models that you know crunch tons of numbers to attempt 0:01:19.240 --> 0:01:24.119 to predict future weather, it goes a little bit beyond Well, 0:01:24.200 --> 0:01:27.240 historically when the weather was like this, then it rained 0:01:27.280 --> 0:01:29.640 more often than it didn't. So there's a greater than 0:01:29.680 --> 0:01:32.920 fifty percent chance of rain today. That's kind of where 0:01:32.920 --> 0:01:35.920 we got started with weather predictions. But you using historical 0:01:36.000 --> 0:01:38.959 data to predict future conditions. But now we've got much 0:01:39.000 --> 0:01:43.840 more sophisticated models that run on supercomputers essentially in order 0:01:43.840 --> 0:01:47.760 to project out what the weather is going to be. Anyway, 0:01:47.760 --> 0:01:50.880 the world of simulations is enormous, right. It covers all 0:01:50.920 --> 0:01:53.960 sorts of different things. It's got a very complicated history. 0:01:53.960 --> 0:01:55.760 It's not like we can point to one thing and 0:01:55.800 --> 0:01:59.320 say this was the first simulator. There are simulators that 0:01:59.360 --> 0:02:02.320 are used for their tainment, you know, like maybe you 0:02:02.440 --> 0:02:06.160 drive a virtual car around a racetrack, or maybe you 0:02:06.320 --> 0:02:10.680 pit an army of computer controlled zombies against an army 0:02:10.800 --> 0:02:15.519 of one a nearly invincible computer controlled john Wick. But today, 0:02:15.720 --> 0:02:17.280 like I said, I really wanted to talk about the 0:02:17.320 --> 0:02:22.160 origins of the flight simulator, which is interesting because no 0:02:22.240 --> 0:02:26.519 computers are involved whatsoever. You see these days flight simulators 0:02:26.919 --> 0:02:30.960 are incredibly sophisticated. There are some that require you to 0:02:31.040 --> 0:02:35.000 get into a cockpit that has a virtual screen, it's 0:02:35.040 --> 0:02:38.560 got a billion dials and indicators in it. It's got 0:02:38.600 --> 0:02:43.400 complex controls that precisely mimic specific aircraft. It's mounted on 0:02:43.600 --> 0:02:49.519 a platform that can be precisely controlled by various components 0:02:49.560 --> 0:02:53.480 to manage the tilt and all of these factors. Right. 0:02:53.840 --> 0:02:57.480 But then there are also some home PC flight simulators 0:02:57.480 --> 0:03:01.720 that are really astounding, of the most famous being Microsoft 0:03:01.760 --> 0:03:05.440 Flight Simulator. Modern flight simulators can create all sorts of 0:03:05.480 --> 0:03:09.080 flight conditions. They can rely on hefty computing power to 0:03:09.080 --> 0:03:11.679 get it all done in the process, but again, that's 0:03:11.720 --> 0:03:15.600 not how they got started. It's very useful for violets 0:03:15.720 --> 0:03:19.120 now to be able to step into a safe space 0:03:19.800 --> 0:03:23.840 and practice flying in different conditions. But when it all 0:03:23.840 --> 0:03:31.760 got started, it was taking a much less technically sophisticated approach. Now, 0:03:31.800 --> 0:03:37.000 what most folks acknowledge as the first flight simulator had 0:03:37.040 --> 0:03:39.360 no computer components at all. In fact, it didn't even 0:03:39.400 --> 0:03:44.640 rely on electronics. It was a purely mechanical system that 0:03:45.000 --> 0:03:48.960 used air and designed to teach pilots how to fly 0:03:49.080 --> 0:03:53.240 by instruments alone. Now by that, I mean pilots would 0:03:53.320 --> 0:03:57.240 learn how to read the various instruments in their cockpit. 0:03:57.520 --> 0:04:00.320 You know, the various dials and things in order to 0:04:00.400 --> 0:04:05.960 understand things like their altitude they're heading, the pitch, the yaw, 0:04:06.080 --> 0:04:09.720 the speed at which they were traveling, both you know, 0:04:09.800 --> 0:04:12.720 in a forward direction and vertically, and to use all 0:04:12.760 --> 0:04:15.920 this information to pilot their aircraft, even if they are 0:04:15.960 --> 0:04:19.320 otherwise in conditions that would prevent the pilot from seeing 0:04:19.360 --> 0:04:24.440 their surroundings. In the earliest days of heavier than air flight, 0:04:24.760 --> 0:04:28.000 pilots relied solely on their own sense of sight to 0:04:28.120 --> 0:04:32.240 navigate and take off, and to land, they relied often 0:04:32.400 --> 0:04:36.160 on their own body position to control the aircraft. The 0:04:36.240 --> 0:04:40.000 Right Brothers built a plane with had some control surfaces, 0:04:40.240 --> 0:04:44.440 and that allowed the pilot to have some ability to 0:04:44.480 --> 0:04:49.880 control the aircraft in three dimensions, though in many cases 0:04:49.920 --> 0:04:53.240 the pilot was also having to use their own body 0:04:53.680 --> 0:04:56.080 to do that, not just like a control but to 0:04:56.600 --> 0:05:01.360 physically shift in order to help move the aircraft where 0:05:01.560 --> 0:05:04.000 they wanted it to go. But there were no real 0:05:04.080 --> 0:05:08.320 dials or gauges or anything like that, so these first flights. 0:05:08.320 --> 0:05:11.000 The Right brothers first flight was in nineteen oh three, 0:05:11.880 --> 0:05:14.400 but over the next two and a half decades, early 0:05:14.560 --> 0:05:19.200 aviators and engineers began to build more sophisticated aircraft that 0:05:19.360 --> 0:05:24.560 had more control systems so that you could do finer 0:05:24.640 --> 0:05:28.479 tuned maneuvers in the air. They also included instruments to 0:05:28.520 --> 0:05:32.680 help pilots maintain proper control of their aircraft. Sometimes the 0:05:32.760 --> 0:05:37.039 instruments would indicate something that might feel counterintuitive to a pilot, 0:05:37.520 --> 0:05:39.680 and then the pilot has to make a choice, right 0:05:40.200 --> 0:05:45.720 do they choose to control their aircraft in tune with 0:05:45.800 --> 0:05:49.400 how they feel, or do they choose to do it 0:05:49.560 --> 0:05:53.760 in tune with how the instruments are reading. And this 0:05:53.880 --> 0:05:55.840 did not always turn out so well. When the pilots 0:05:55.920 --> 0:05:58.560 chose to go with their gut feeling, that actually would 0:05:58.560 --> 0:06:02.240 become an issue because would undergo certain stresses as a 0:06:02.279 --> 0:06:05.719 pilot in an aircraft that would make you feel a 0:06:05.720 --> 0:06:10.320 certain way that was convincing you that one thing was 0:06:10.320 --> 0:06:12.760 happening when in fact that wasn't happening. But if you 0:06:12.839 --> 0:06:16.520 act on that, then you could end up creating a 0:06:16.640 --> 0:06:21.480 dangerous situation. The instruments were there to tell the pilot 0:06:21.560 --> 0:06:24.640 what's really going on. You know, assuming the instruments are 0:06:24.640 --> 0:06:26.680 in working order, which is why you have to go 0:06:26.760 --> 0:06:32.240 through that long preflight checklist, then you need to trust 0:06:32.279 --> 0:06:35.200 in that data and make your decisions based on that. 0:06:35.800 --> 0:06:40.000 So in nineteen twenty nine, a pilot named Jimmy Doolittle 0:06:40.520 --> 0:06:44.760 performed a pretty daring task. He flew in an aircraft 0:06:44.800 --> 0:06:48.200 in which his view of the outside world was obstructed. Now, 0:06:48.240 --> 0:06:50.599 some versions of the story say that he flew with 0:06:50.640 --> 0:06:54.839 a safety pilot who presumably could see, but Doolittle was 0:06:54.880 --> 0:06:58.480 in control for the whole flight and he could not see. 0:06:58.960 --> 0:07:02.719 So he felt that pilots were relying too heavily on 0:07:02.800 --> 0:07:05.200 their own senses, and as I said, those can be 0:07:05.240 --> 0:07:08.600 fooled in the environment of a cockpit. Doolittle recognize that 0:07:08.640 --> 0:07:12.520 pilots encounter situations that can trick them into thinking that 0:07:12.560 --> 0:07:15.000 they're heading in a different direction, or that they were 0:07:15.040 --> 0:07:18.880 suddenly climbing or diving, when perhaps they're not so. Doolittle 0:07:18.960 --> 0:07:23.000 was a big believer in flight instruments and how reliable 0:07:23.040 --> 0:07:25.640 they can be, and in nineteen twenty nine he proved it. 0:07:25.880 --> 0:07:29.280 He flew by instruments alone, so he couldn't see anything. 0:07:29.680 --> 0:07:32.480 He was just using the instruments to figure out when 0:07:32.520 --> 0:07:35.200 he could take off, where he was going, how high 0:07:35.200 --> 0:07:37.560 he was, how fast he was going. He flew a 0:07:37.640 --> 0:07:41.760 course and then came back down and landed the plane 0:07:42.760 --> 0:07:44.760 without ever being able to see the world around him. 0:07:44.840 --> 0:07:49.000 It actually reminds me of how submarine operators work, right 0:07:49.160 --> 0:07:52.440 Like submarines. You're big submarines, the ones that go deep. 0:07:52.480 --> 0:07:56.600 They don't have windows. You can't see outside to the 0:07:56.640 --> 0:08:01.119 world around you. You are basing everything on your instrumentation 0:08:01.440 --> 0:08:04.880 and math. You're keeping track of how long you are 0:08:04.920 --> 0:08:07.640 on a course and how quickly you're moving, and you're 0:08:07.720 --> 0:08:11.840 using charts to understand what the sea around you, what 0:08:11.960 --> 0:08:15.720 those conditions are like, and you make your decisions based 0:08:15.720 --> 0:08:18.760 off that. Like it's you can't see anything, same sort 0:08:18.800 --> 0:08:23.880 of thing, but in an aircraft, and his point, Doolittle's 0:08:23.880 --> 0:08:26.480 point was a really important one. Aircraft travel in all 0:08:26.560 --> 0:08:30.800 sorts of conditions. You know, you're not just flying in clear, 0:08:31.240 --> 0:08:35.960 well lit conditions. You could be flying at night, or 0:08:36.120 --> 0:08:40.760 maybe there's fog or other precipitation, maybe there's smoke. So 0:08:40.800 --> 0:08:43.560 in those kinds of conditions, the instrument panel might be 0:08:43.679 --> 0:08:46.720 all the information you can rely upon while you're trying 0:08:46.760 --> 0:08:49.520 to operate the aircraft. So you have better darnwell know 0:08:49.600 --> 0:08:54.000 how to fly by instruments. Now the problem is learning 0:08:54.000 --> 0:08:58.120 to fly by instruments is challenging. Typically, you would need 0:08:58.120 --> 0:09:00.880 to secure an aircraft right First, got to have an aircraft. 0:09:01.400 --> 0:09:04.640 Then you need to have an instructor who can help 0:09:04.720 --> 0:09:07.600 you as you are learning, and you have to spend 0:09:07.640 --> 0:09:10.400 lots and lots of hours learning how to trust those 0:09:10.480 --> 0:09:14.400 instruments and to make decisions based on their readings. Plus 0:09:14.679 --> 0:09:18.760 you needed aircraft that actually had those instruments installed. This 0:09:18.840 --> 0:09:22.320 was a non trivial challenge in the early days of aviation. Yes, 0:09:22.400 --> 0:09:26.479 we had invented and engineered these instruments, things like altimeters 0:09:26.480 --> 0:09:29.080 that would tell you how high you were. Now we 0:09:29.200 --> 0:09:32.840 had these things, but a lot of aircraft just didn't 0:09:32.880 --> 0:09:36.760 have them on there. Even the Army Air Corps had 0:09:36.800 --> 0:09:39.760 instruments that were kind of sitting in storage waiting to 0:09:39.800 --> 0:09:42.560 be installed an aircraft. But to do that you have 0:09:42.600 --> 0:09:45.640 to make time to install it and test it and 0:09:45.679 --> 0:09:47.320 make sure it works and all that kind of stuff. 0:09:47.600 --> 0:09:52.360 And in the meanwhile, the aircraft you are upgrading isn't 0:09:52.440 --> 0:09:57.480 in service, and often they were needed in service. So 0:09:57.840 --> 0:10:00.160 there was a long stretch where a lot of the 0:10:00.160 --> 0:10:03.480 aircraft that the Army Air Corps was using didn't have 0:10:04.040 --> 0:10:07.800 these instruments at all. Okay, when we come back, we're 0:10:07.840 --> 0:10:09.840 going to talk about the guy who came up with 0:10:09.960 --> 0:10:14.480 a solution or a potential solution for the challenges you 0:10:14.559 --> 0:10:20.160 face training pilots to fly by instruments alone. A guy 0:10:20.240 --> 0:10:23.200 named Edwin Albert Link. We'll talk more about him when 0:10:23.240 --> 0:10:35.959 we come back after this quick break. Okay, before the break, guy, 0:10:35.960 --> 0:10:39.559 I was talking about Doolittle and how he was demonstrating 0:10:39.600 --> 0:10:43.160 that a pilot could fly just using instruments without having 0:10:43.240 --> 0:10:46.080 any view of the outside world at all. And then 0:10:46.080 --> 0:10:49.199 I mentioned that there was this enterprising inventor who came 0:10:49.280 --> 0:10:51.760 up with a device that would let prospective pilots train 0:10:51.840 --> 0:10:54.280 without ever having to leave the ground. And again that 0:10:54.400 --> 0:10:58.920 inventor was Edwin Albert Link. So Link was born just 0:10:59.040 --> 0:11:01.800 one year to the right brothers took flight for the 0:11:01.840 --> 0:11:04.200 first time. So by that, I mean he was born 0:11:04.240 --> 0:11:07.000 in nineteen o four, Just in case you forgot that 0:11:07.040 --> 0:11:09.560 I had mentioned the right brothers flew in nineteen o three. 0:11:10.200 --> 0:11:12.720 He was born in Indiana, but when he was still 0:11:12.720 --> 0:11:15.760 a young kid, his family moved to Binghampton, New York, 0:11:16.040 --> 0:11:20.040 and his father was the owner of the Link Piano 0:11:20.200 --> 0:11:25.079 and organ company. And yes, this does matter, So young 0:11:25.200 --> 0:11:29.040 Eddie grew up around mechanical systems, and these were systems 0:11:29.080 --> 0:11:31.960 that we're using pumped air to generate results. In the 0:11:32.040 --> 0:11:36.520 case of oregans and pianos to generate musical notes. The 0:11:36.520 --> 0:11:39.960 pianos that Link the Elder were making were automatic or 0:11:40.040 --> 0:11:43.920 player pianos. Those use air power to work. I've done 0:11:43.960 --> 0:11:46.280 episodes about how these player pianos work, so I'm not 0:11:46.320 --> 0:11:49.040 going to go over it all again. But if you've 0:11:49.040 --> 0:11:52.880 ever seen player piano roles, it's like this long roll 0:11:52.960 --> 0:11:55.920 of paper that has holes punched into the paper in 0:11:55.960 --> 0:11:59.720 different spots. Those holes are where air can pass through, 0:12:00.200 --> 0:12:03.239 and it was the air that would power the mechanical 0:12:03.320 --> 0:12:06.599 system within the piano to have keys pressed down and 0:12:07.160 --> 0:12:11.559 produce a note. So the pianos and organs were using 0:12:11.640 --> 0:12:15.199 bellows to pump air through systems to generate sound, and 0:12:15.320 --> 0:12:20.360 that would end up being the basis for links invention 0:12:20.520 --> 0:12:23.160 later on down the road. In fact, he was using 0:12:23.480 --> 0:12:28.640 actual parts from his father's piano and Oregon company in 0:12:28.760 --> 0:12:31.880 order to build this first simulator, so much so that 0:12:32.040 --> 0:12:34.600 later on down the line there was a point where 0:12:34.880 --> 0:12:39.199 the Oregon Company needed to salvage parts from a simulator 0:12:39.240 --> 0:12:41.640 in order to repair an organ. So that's kind of 0:12:41.679 --> 0:12:47.800 incredible anyway, link the younger Eddie baby, he was fascinated 0:12:47.800 --> 0:12:50.600 by flying early in the nineteen twenties. He took some 0:12:50.640 --> 0:12:53.240 flying lessons. You know, this is when at this point 0:12:53.280 --> 0:12:58.080 he's still a teenager and even purchased Assessna in nineteen 0:12:58.120 --> 0:13:01.520 twenty seven. But he also recognize the challenges I've already 0:13:01.520 --> 0:13:05.120 mentioned about flying, particularly about how to learn to fly 0:13:05.200 --> 0:13:09.120 by instruments. Like lessons, were also expensive, right, Not everybody 0:13:09.160 --> 0:13:13.679 could afford to hire out an aircraft and an instructor 0:13:14.360 --> 0:13:17.640 and take all that time to fly up in the 0:13:17.679 --> 0:13:20.199 air and learn how to fly by instruments. He saw 0:13:20.200 --> 0:13:22.640 that there was an opportunity here to create something that 0:13:22.679 --> 0:13:27.520 would make the training process simpler, and he knew that 0:13:27.559 --> 0:13:30.880 these skills were really important to be a dependable pilot, 0:13:31.120 --> 0:13:33.480 to be able to be a really capable pilot, you 0:13:33.520 --> 0:13:35.360 needed to learn how to fly by instruments. So he 0:13:35.400 --> 0:13:38.680 came up with this crazy idea, and that was to 0:13:38.880 --> 0:13:44.199 build a mechanical flight simulator. It consisted of a wooden 0:13:44.240 --> 0:13:47.240 cockpit and it was just big enough really to hold 0:13:47.240 --> 0:13:53.200 a person and then have the various instrumentation fed through 0:13:53.320 --> 0:13:55.680 to the rest of the system. But yeah, it was 0:13:55.760 --> 0:13:59.000 not huge. It was little wooden cockpit you'd climb in, 0:13:59.360 --> 0:14:02.200 had a door that you could open and climb through, 0:14:02.400 --> 0:14:06.160 and also had a hardtop cover that would completely enclose 0:14:06.240 --> 0:14:09.079 the pilot inside, and there was no way to view 0:14:09.080 --> 0:14:11.480 the outer world. You could just see the instrument panel. 0:14:11.600 --> 0:14:14.200 That's it. But the instrument panel would provide all the 0:14:14.200 --> 0:14:17.560 information needed to the pilot inside. The instrument panel actually worked, 0:14:18.080 --> 0:14:20.240 it was connected to the rest of the system. The 0:14:20.320 --> 0:14:24.080 whole cockpit was mounted onto a universal joint that could 0:14:24.120 --> 0:14:28.640 tilt in various ways so that the simulator could simulate 0:14:29.040 --> 0:14:32.240 changes in pitch. That's when the nose of the plane 0:14:32.320 --> 0:14:35.120 is going up or going down, that's your pitch. And 0:14:35.200 --> 0:14:38.880 also roll roll is the rolling to the left or 0:14:38.920 --> 0:14:43.680 to the right. The actual base of the apparatus could rotate, 0:14:44.080 --> 0:14:47.680 so that could simulate yaw yaws rotating right or left 0:14:47.720 --> 0:14:52.000 as opposed to rolling right or left. Air pumps would 0:14:52.000 --> 0:14:56.200 supply pressurized air to the bellows underneath the universal joint, 0:14:56.400 --> 0:15:00.560 so by inflating or allowing to deflate bellows, you could 0:15:00.640 --> 0:15:04.760 tilt the cockpit, so you know, you inflate the bellows. 0:15:04.800 --> 0:15:08.080 More on one side, and they push up and tilt 0:15:08.160 --> 0:15:11.040 the plane in the opposite direction, so the bellows on 0:15:11.080 --> 0:15:13.640 the right no up, the plane ends up tilting to 0:15:13.680 --> 0:15:18.560 the left, And this was actually controlled by the controllers 0:15:18.600 --> 0:15:21.800 stick inside the simulator. As you moved the controllers stick, 0:15:22.160 --> 0:15:25.160 it would allow valves to open and close, and so 0:15:25.240 --> 0:15:28.120 the bellows would get more air or be allowed to 0:15:28.160 --> 0:15:32.920 release air, and that would actually change the orientation of 0:15:32.960 --> 0:15:36.280 the simulator itself. So the response wasn't immediate because this 0:15:36.400 --> 0:15:39.280 is all air powered, but it would reflect whatever the 0:15:39.280 --> 0:15:41.520 pilot was doing inside the cockpit, so it wouldn't be 0:15:41.600 --> 0:15:46.280 quite the same sort of responsiveness you would experience with 0:15:46.560 --> 0:15:50.840 an actual aircraft, but it did simulate it, just at 0:15:50.840 --> 0:15:55.160 a slightly slower response time. Now, officially, the simulator would 0:15:55.160 --> 0:15:58.240 become known as the link trainer, or at least the 0:15:58.240 --> 0:16:01.000 whole line of these would be known as link trainer. 0:16:01.520 --> 0:16:04.360 The more common name, especially in the military when they 0:16:04.400 --> 0:16:07.480 would become popular a little bit later, was the blue box, 0:16:08.280 --> 0:16:11.920 because the cockpit was essentially a box that you would 0:16:11.920 --> 0:16:14.280 get client you would climb into and get shut up in, 0:16:14.920 --> 0:16:17.800 and at least in the United States, they were frequently 0:16:17.800 --> 0:16:21.280 painted blue. In other nations, they would be painted different colors. 0:16:21.840 --> 0:16:24.720 Like I said, the instruments inside the cockpit actually would 0:16:24.760 --> 0:16:27.680 give information to the pilot, while the Blue Box would 0:16:27.720 --> 0:16:31.360 never actually get off the ground. It is firmly earthbound. 0:16:31.800 --> 0:16:34.840 The altimeter inside the Blue Box couldn't inform the pilot 0:16:34.880 --> 0:16:38.240 of how high they were going via the simulation, so 0:16:38.520 --> 0:16:41.400 you could also get readouts for things like horizontal speed, 0:16:41.520 --> 0:16:44.960 vertical speed you're heading, and all that kind of stuff. Now, 0:16:44.960 --> 0:16:48.800 while the Blue Box couldn't crash, thus it was, you know, 0:16:48.920 --> 0:16:52.240 safer than a real aircraft would be, so you could 0:16:52.440 --> 0:16:56.240 put pilots through it without worrying about them encountering rough 0:16:56.280 --> 0:16:59.120 air or bad weather and getting out of their depth 0:16:59.160 --> 0:17:04.359 and tragedy following. The blue Box itself was not entirely safe. 0:17:05.119 --> 0:17:08.840 One unfortunate feature of the Blue Box. It's hard to 0:17:08.880 --> 0:17:11.960 say that over and over super fast anyway. One unfortunate 0:17:11.960 --> 0:17:14.439 feature of it was that in order to be able 0:17:14.480 --> 0:17:18.800 to see these instruments that are meant to be your 0:17:18.920 --> 0:17:23.840 guide when you're flying, Eddie decided to have everything painted 0:17:23.880 --> 0:17:28.000 with radium. So radium it's luminescent, it glows in the dark, 0:17:28.440 --> 0:17:32.000 but it's also radioactive and being exposed to radium for 0:17:32.080 --> 0:17:34.720 prolonged periods could lead to a higher risk of bad 0:17:34.760 --> 0:17:38.640 health outcomes over time, So it is entirely possible that 0:17:38.760 --> 0:17:42.240 early trainees encountered serious health issues later on in their 0:17:42.320 --> 0:17:46.840 lives in part due to the training simulator. It gets 0:17:46.880 --> 0:17:53.080 really tricky to draw firm consequences like you can typically 0:17:53.119 --> 0:17:58.920 talk in terms of chance like probabilities, but it's very 0:17:58.920 --> 0:18:03.480 difficult to say deffinitatively X number of people develop say cancer, 0:18:03.720 --> 0:18:06.760 as a result of training in these simulators, but that 0:18:06.960 --> 0:18:09.360 was a risk and we didn't know about it at 0:18:09.359 --> 0:18:12.919 the time. The link trainer also had a station for 0:18:13.119 --> 0:18:16.959 a human instructor, so they would not be in the simulator. 0:18:17.040 --> 0:18:19.920 They would actually be sitting outside at a desk like 0:18:20.480 --> 0:18:23.679 thing that would have a map, a radio so that 0:18:23.720 --> 0:18:26.240 they could talk to the person who is inside the simulator, 0:18:26.760 --> 0:18:29.680 and they would have their own set of instrument readouts 0:18:29.720 --> 0:18:32.280 so they could actually see the same readouts that the 0:18:32.320 --> 0:18:35.959 pilot would see, so the instructor could give instructions to 0:18:36.000 --> 0:18:39.439 the pilot and then monitor the instruments to see if 0:18:39.440 --> 0:18:43.760 the pilot was performing the maneuvers properly. In order to 0:18:43.760 --> 0:18:47.040 fulfill the instructions, they were given. The pilot in turn 0:18:47.600 --> 0:18:50.840 learned to fly by instruments alone while remaining safe on 0:18:50.880 --> 0:18:53.960 the ground, so even if they did totally with it, 0:18:54.560 --> 0:18:57.600 they would not come careening toward the ground and crash. 0:18:58.600 --> 0:19:01.520 Link opened up a flying school and used a simulator, 0:19:01.560 --> 0:19:05.359 which was called the Pilot Maker, to train students. But 0:19:05.480 --> 0:19:08.119 the timing for this was more than a little bit 0:19:08.200 --> 0:19:11.720 unfortunate because remember this was nineteen twenty nine when he 0:19:11.800 --> 0:19:15.560 built the first prototype. Well, nineteen twenty nine also marked 0:19:15.600 --> 0:19:21.760 the beginning of the Great Depression, an enormously damaging economic recession, 0:19:22.240 --> 0:19:25.159 not even recession, I mean it was a depression. And 0:19:25.359 --> 0:19:28.919 Link was able to produce some of his simulators for 0:19:29.040 --> 0:19:33.880 amusement parks where they were used for entertainment purposes, but 0:19:34.280 --> 0:19:38.399 it was hard to get students because a lot of 0:19:38.440 --> 0:19:42.840 people just couldn't afford the classes. So things were looking 0:19:42.840 --> 0:19:46.080 a little grim, but they would change due to a 0:19:46.280 --> 0:19:52.480 scandal and a string of tragedies. I'll explain more when 0:19:52.520 --> 0:20:04.359 we come back from this break. Before the break, I 0:20:04.440 --> 0:20:09.320 mentioned that a scandal and some tragedies would end up 0:20:09.440 --> 0:20:15.760 changing things for Edwin Link and bring his simulators into demand. 0:20:16.400 --> 0:20:20.119 And the scandal was all about mail delivery in the 0:20:20.200 --> 0:20:23.840 United States, as in sending mail or post if you 0:20:23.920 --> 0:20:27.679 prefer letters, packages, that kind of stuff. Several companies that 0:20:27.680 --> 0:20:32.080 would later become big commercial passenger airlines really got their 0:20:32.119 --> 0:20:37.400 start by hauling mail between cities airmail right and this 0:20:37.560 --> 0:20:40.720 was after the Post Office itself had operated its own 0:20:40.760 --> 0:20:44.000 airmail service, a service that was plagued in the early 0:20:44.080 --> 0:20:46.680 days by accidents that led to the tragic loss of life. 0:20:46.720 --> 0:20:49.840 More than a dozen pilots in the early years died 0:20:50.200 --> 0:20:55.000 as a result of crashes, and eventually the Post Office 0:20:55.080 --> 0:20:57.920 was given permission, this would be in the nineteen twenties, 0:20:58.359 --> 0:21:05.960 to contract with private airlines to carry US mail. It 0:21:06.080 --> 0:21:10.800 got really complicated. It was a process that these private 0:21:10.800 --> 0:21:14.360 companies would enter into. They would bid against each other. 0:21:14.640 --> 0:21:17.320 So they're competing against each other for the right to 0:21:17.480 --> 0:21:20.800 carry mail along certain routes because that was like a 0:21:20.840 --> 0:21:25.000 guaranteed revenue source. They were also attempting to turn into 0:21:25.000 --> 0:21:29.040 passenger airlines at the same time, and it was really complicated. 0:21:29.920 --> 0:21:35.200 The US government had an interest in supporting this burgeoning institution, 0:21:35.359 --> 0:21:39.920 this new type of industry, so there was this desire 0:21:40.000 --> 0:21:42.920 to make certain that you know, the government wasn't going 0:21:42.920 --> 0:21:46.280 to do something that was going to slow down the 0:21:46.400 --> 0:21:52.600 adoption of flight, but the process was so closed off 0:21:53.040 --> 0:21:57.239 and had some contradictions or at least perceived contradictions in it, 0:21:57.840 --> 0:22:02.600 that a scandal developed, and it involved contract pricing, the 0:22:02.640 --> 0:22:06.840 bidding situation, and it implied that the US government was 0:22:06.880 --> 0:22:10.119 giving favorable treatment to some companies at the expense of others, 0:22:10.720 --> 0:22:13.640 even in cases where one company would offer a more 0:22:13.680 --> 0:22:16.520 competitive bid to carry the mail along a certain route, 0:22:16.960 --> 0:22:20.200 but the route would instead be awarded to a totally 0:22:20.240 --> 0:22:23.280 different company, meaning that the government was going to have 0:22:23.320 --> 0:22:26.840 to pay more to this other company, and that money 0:22:26.880 --> 0:22:29.240 is all taxpayer money. So that's why there was this 0:22:29.280 --> 0:22:34.800 big scandal. The newspapers report, Hey, your taxes are going 0:22:34.880 --> 0:22:38.600 to fund airmail, which is fine, except the government is 0:22:38.600 --> 0:22:42.040 being wasteful because instead of awarding contracts to the most 0:22:42.040 --> 0:22:45.560 competitive companies, they're going with these other ones, and it 0:22:45.600 --> 0:22:49.960 looks really buddy buddy and corrupt. So this ultimately kind 0:22:49.960 --> 0:22:53.640 of forced the government's hand, and in early nineteen thirty four, 0:22:54.200 --> 0:22:58.080 the US would shift airmail duties from the private commercial 0:22:58.080 --> 0:23:03.040 sector to the military. Specifically, the Army Air Corps would 0:23:03.040 --> 0:23:06.520 take over air mail delivery in the United States. But 0:23:06.560 --> 0:23:10.480 there was a huge problem. The Air Corps did not 0:23:10.720 --> 0:23:13.439 have an excess of fully trained pilots with a lot 0:23:13.480 --> 0:23:16.600 of flight experience. In fact, their most highly trained pilots 0:23:17.160 --> 0:23:20.640 were busy training the next generation of pilots. They were 0:23:20.640 --> 0:23:24.359 all tied up in pilot schools. More than half of 0:23:24.400 --> 0:23:28.840 the pilots that were tapped for airmail service had less 0:23:28.840 --> 0:23:32.480 than two years of flying experience to their names. Most 0:23:32.520 --> 0:23:35.720 of them had never flown in bad weather, most of 0:23:35.760 --> 0:23:38.760 them had never flown at night, and literally only a 0:23:38.800 --> 0:23:42.880 couple of them had completed a significant time of flying 0:23:43.160 --> 0:23:47.440 just by instruments. So you've got this job of delivering 0:23:47.520 --> 0:23:50.280 a whole lot of mail, so the demand is there. 0:23:50.880 --> 0:23:56.000 You're relying on inexperienced pilots, and primarily the Air Corps 0:23:56.040 --> 0:23:59.600 was planning on doing night runs, so the mail was 0:23:59.640 --> 0:24:02.800 going to be delivered at night. Again, most of the 0:24:02.840 --> 0:24:05.280 pilots had never even flown at night. Now, as you 0:24:05.359 --> 0:24:10.360 might imagine, this inevitably led to tragic consequences. There were 0:24:10.440 --> 0:24:15.120 numerous crashes and fatalities. Unusually severe weather in the early 0:24:15.200 --> 0:24:19.520 winter months of nineteen thirty four contributed to the problem significantly, 0:24:20.040 --> 0:24:23.280 and you had around a dozen deaths in a couple 0:24:23.320 --> 0:24:25.320 of months, and it was bad enough for the government 0:24:25.359 --> 0:24:28.520 to quickly pass the Airmail Act of nineteen thirty four, 0:24:29.080 --> 0:24:33.560 which would return airmail duties to the commercial industry, not 0:24:33.680 --> 0:24:37.720 the military anymore. However, it also included more rules that 0:24:37.720 --> 0:24:40.600 would allow for better transparency with regard to the bidding 0:24:40.680 --> 0:24:44.880 process in order to avoid the appearance of favoritism. Meanwhile, 0:24:44.880 --> 0:24:48.040 the Army Air Corps secured the purchase of half a 0:24:48.119 --> 0:24:53.680 dozen link trainer simulators because they then recognized that they 0:24:53.720 --> 0:24:57.800 were really putting pilots in danger. There were people who 0:24:57.840 --> 0:25:01.240 were calling the approach the Air Corps was using a 0:25:01.400 --> 0:25:05.960 death sentence for pilots. So this would allow pilots to 0:25:06.000 --> 0:25:12.200 get more experience and familiarity with flying by instruments without 0:25:12.320 --> 0:25:16.400 having to dedicate aircraft that could otherwise be put into 0:25:16.440 --> 0:25:21.760 other service. So it saved the aircraft for official military use, 0:25:22.240 --> 0:25:25.840 and it gave pilots more time to learn these systems 0:25:25.840 --> 0:25:29.320 so that they could operate the aircraft more effectively and safely. 0:25:29.760 --> 0:25:33.439 The value of the simulators was realized right away, and 0:25:33.560 --> 0:25:36.439 Eddie would see his invention go into serious demand in 0:25:36.480 --> 0:25:40.160