The Link Trainer was a 1930s analogue flight simulator which moved in accordance with the cockpit controls. As it tilted to simulate movements, the aircraft progress was shown by the three-wheeled 'crab' which laid down a coloured track as it moved around the glass table overlaying a map. The instructor's repeater panel on the left duplicated the airspeed, altimeter, variometer (climb/descent) and radio compass (ADF) in the cockpit, and he and the pupil could talk via intercom.
This picture from Rupert's collection is captioned: Sgt Pilot Kenneth Perkin endeavouring to control Cadet Rupert Parkhouse on a Link Trainer at RAF Cranwell. It is believed that Cadet Parkhouse is about to go into a spin from which he never recovered his nerve. The caption is grimly prescient, for Rupert will blame his five years in captivity as the result of his “awful mistake” which led to loss of control in cloud.
The memoirs of Sqn Ldr Rupert Parkhouse, recorded in 1995 – Part 7. The first post in this series is #9775 on page 489 of this thread.
On March 8 I was commissioned, on the same day reporting for Fairey Battle training with 63 Sqn at RAF Benson. I was waiting for transport at the station when a chap in RAAF uniform offered me a lift. This was Alan Goole, who was the engineering officer at Benson and an extraordinarily pleasant Australian with a very easy manner, and we became firm friends.
We lived in the officers' quarters where I was roomed with Brian Moss, who had been on Cambridge UAS and was a member of the Moss family who were paint manufacturers in Chorley. All the brothers were aviators and two had designed a two-seat monoplane called the Mothcraft.
At 24 Brian was older than most of us and taught me a lot. I used to have difficulty on the Link Trainer blind flying simulator and he gave me a little lecture on the instruments. He said that what you must do is to regard the artificial horizon as your master instrument and other advice, following which I did an instrument cross-country under the blind flying hood with the flight commander, a Flt Lt James. I didn't get on terribly well with James because at our first interview he asked what kind of commission I had although he must have known I was ex-Cranwell and he was short service. I replied regular, which he took to mean that short service officers were irregular; of course I never meant that in any way. He took it rather badly and I was never his favourite pupil.
After about two hours under the hood on our triangular cross-country we were walking to the crew room when he said “You know, Parkhouse, those were the three best courses I have seen flown on instruments” which I was rather pleased about.
In those days there was no crewing up and we seemed to be crewed for our various sorties in a totally haphazard manner. Most of the navigators were bright young RAFVR sergeants, some considerably older than I was, and our little air gunners were extremely young chaps who were very proud of the 'flying bullet' on their arms.
We were told that the Battle force in France was going to adopt the low level role to attack industrial targets in the Ruhr. There was no mention of support for the Army. We had a sweet little Intelligence officer with RFC wings and Pip, Squeak and Wilfred medals from WW1 who would take us through pseudo-sorties on maps and photographs projected from a magic lantern. We would start off reading the map and then we were told we would see a river and we would be shown perhaps a river or bridge. Eventually we would be shown a power station and this is what we were supposed to attack.
NEXT POST: Gaining confidence, Rupert goes wandering in his Battle and starts adding new airfields to his log book. Then the boss finds out ...