A Biographical Sketch OF Edwin A. Link
Engineer, oceanologist, pilot, industrialist, dreamer, and visionary are but a few of the titles that describe Edwin A. Link. The man so enthralled with aviation that he invented the "blue box" or "Link Trainer" flight simulator also had a passion for the sea. His interest in such seemingly contrasting habitats have led some to describe him as a navigator. Although born in Huntington, Indiana, Ed Link spent most of his youth living in upstate New York. There, he enhanced his mechanical aptitude while he worked in his father's organ company.
Ed Link's fascination with aviation led him to take flying lessons. The dreamer developed his now famous Link Trainer to help people learn how to fly for less money than actual airplane hours would cost. This first aviation trainer was a wooden fuselage with a blue painted cockpit mounted on organ bellows from his father's business, the Link Piano and Organ Company. A vacuum pump operated the bellows and gave the fuselage the necessary pitch and roll of "flight."
Sale of the "blue box" pilot maker went slowly until 1934, when Ed Link demonstrated his trainer's capabilities to Army Air Corps officers in New Jersey. The Army Air Corps placed an order for six trainers. Soon, orders came from Japan and the Soviet Union. The onset of World War II brought demand for many types of trainers, including trainers that simulated various military aircraft, gunnery trainers, radar trainers, automatic pilot trainers, and celestial navigation trainers.
After the war, military orders declined. But, by the early 1950s, Ed Link's company and others began the design and construction of electronic simulators employing computer technology. These new simulators gave training in a myriad of aviation procedures from take-off to landing.
With the new simulators and with the Link Company growth now ensured, Ed Link's opportunity came to channel his creative abilities in new directions. In 1953, Ed established a foundation to support research and education in aeronautics and oceanography. The Link Foundation began awarding grants to universities and non-profit organizations. Ed also started a new career in underwater archaeology, an outgrowth of his interests in sailing and diving. After he sold the Link Company, Ed devoted more time to his underwater pursuits. What began as a hobby, to find sunken treasures off the coast of Florida, became a new avenue for Ed Link's genius to explore.
Once Marion and Ed Link decided to work full time exploring underwater, they found their pleasure sailing vessel, "Blue Heron" too inadequate for their needs. They purchased and converted an old shrimp trawler into a research vessel that they named "Sea Diver."
By the late 1950s, after several expeditions in the Caribbean, Ed Link was ready to design a boat specifically for his underwater research. He supervised the construction of his 100-foot research and pleasure vessel "Sea Diver II." Her maiden voyage was to Port Royal, Jamaica to explore the sunken city.
Then, in 1960, the Links set sail for a three year underwater archaeological expedition in the Mediterranean Sea. On this expedition, Ed Link tested his submersible decompression chamber (SDC) that he designed to allow divers to work and live underwater for extended periods of time.
An outcome of this expedition was a program that would further test the SDC and underwater habitats. His Man-In-Sea programs began in the early 1960s after Ed Link received the National Geographic Society's commitment to publish his research.
Using the submersible decompression chamber he designed, Ed Link supervised a successful 430 foot dive off Great Stirrup Cay in the Bahamas. The dive also employed his submersible portable inflatable dwelling (SPID). Robert Stenuit and Jon Lindbergh (son of aviator Charles Lindbergh) were the divers for this project.
An outgrowth of the 430 foot dive was the organization of Ocean Systems, Inc., a company devoted to the commercial development of a broad range of underwater services and support systems. About that same time, Ed Link joined with John Perry in the design and construction of "Deep Diver," a four-man lockout submersible. It was the first submersible with an exit hatch for divers to use to work at great depths on the ocean floor.
In 1969, Ed Link purchased a deserted mining channel between Vero Beach and Fort Pierce, Florida. Link Port provided a permanent base for Sea Diver II and, in 1971, became the sight of Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution, a research facility for marine science and ocean engineering founded by J. Seward Johnson, Sr.
At Link Port, Ed Link continued designing a new submersible improving on the Deep Diver design. Johnson-Sea-Link was made of an aluminum alloy and acrylics for a lighter submersible. The acrylics were used to create a huge transparent acrylic sphere to be the pilot/observer's compartment. The aluminum alloy was used for the frame to hold the diver's compartment, battery pods, and other component parts. In 1989, the Living Seas exhibit at Disney World called it "futuristic"…today. And the submersible had been in use almost 20 years!
An unfortunate accident with Johnson-Sea-Link in the early 1970s resulted in the development of a cabled observation and rescue devise (CORD). The Johnson-Sea-Link became entangled in the wreckage of an old destroyer off Florida's coast. Two divers, Albert Stover and the Link's son Clayton, died in the accident. Ed Link devoted the next two years assisting in the design of CORD that works in conjunction with a surface ship. The unmanned CORD uses television cameras, lights, and hydraulic-powered claws and cutters, that allow it to free a trapped submersible. It was one of the first remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) used.
Not one to limit his interests, Ed Link also established the Link Antique Steam Foundation, Inc. for research and education relating to energy sources. To demonstrate steam energy, a scaled down train powered by a steam engine wound through the campus at Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution. In 1990, the train was donated to the Gold Coast Railroad Museum in Miami, Florida.
Ed Link's contributions to the worlds of aviation and oceanology have brought him recognition from many universities and organizations. He received honorary degrees from Tufts University, Hamilton College, State University of New York at Binghamton, Syracuse University, and Florida Institute of Technology. Other honors include: The Franklin Institute's Howard N. Potts Medal; the Wakefield Gold Medal from the Royal Aeronautical Society in London; the Underwater Society of America; NOGI Award for Science; Matthew Fontaine Maury Medal from the Smithsonian Institution; OX5 Club Aviation Hall of Fame; International Oceanographic Foundation Gold Medal Award; and the Lingbergh Award.
Ed Link died September 7, 1981. Just a few days before his death, the city of Binghamton in New York honored him by renaming its airport Edwin A. Link Field. The worlds of aviation and oceanology will remember him for the dreams he brought to life.