July 1942. "These high school boys constructed this trainer plane, and the young man holding the stick is operating it. Note the instruments and control board. This is one phase of the aviation course offered boys at the Weequahic High School in Newark, New Jersey." Text in the cockpit: "Getting the Plane Off the Ground." Office of War Information, photographer unknown.

> http://www.shorpy.com/node/16446?size=_original#caption

In the 70's I was involved in the establishment of a major new aviation museum. Among the exhibits was a Link Trainer, a sixties version almost identical with the 1945 version shown. It cost several thousand pounds to restore to working order. the finished product had minimal instrumentation, some dodgey hydraulics that threw you about in a completely uncovincing manner and a "crab" that drew the course you had flown on a map, (you can see this on the desk in front of the woman operator). As it was a blind-flying trainer there were no visuals other than the illuminated instruments.

Now in the digital age with a vanilla version of IL2, cheap joy-stick and cheap PC we can all enjoy a simulation that is several orders of magnitude better than the sixties Link at a fraction of the of the restoration cost.Some times I think we forget how lucky we are!

Wingco.