DODGYOLDFART (#99),
When I did my OTU on the Spitfire I in 1942, ISTR that we had a simple "ring and bead" reflector sight. A long forgotten "simulator" called the "Edmunds Trainer" consisted of the Link trainer with one of these sights fitted plus a model aircraft mounted on a trolley. A chap pushed this across your bows, and you guessed the deflection and yawed the Link accordingly.
Of course, it was hopeless, as the Link yawed "in leaps and bounds" (very jerkily), and how we were assessed (if at all) I cannot remember. Clay pigeons would've been useful, but we didn't have any. The aircraft had gun cameras, but they were never used for training - I suppose that the cost of film plus developing and assessing results was too much to bear. The result was, as I have said (on "Pilot's Brevet") in the distant past, "a young man might arrive on his first squadron having fired nothing more lethal than the popgun he had as a child".
I had totally forgotten the "Edmunds Trainer" until I found entries in the "Link Trainer" section of my log of time spent in it. Had to appeal on "Pilots Brevet" Thread to find what it it was, for I'd lost all memory of it ! By the most curious of coincidences, I later served with a Wing Commander Edmondes, an Armaments Branch officer, who had devised it ("Edmondes" having been corrupted into "Edmonds" and then "Edmunds"). Strange but true.
Danny42C.
Last edited by Danny42C; 27th Jul 2017 at 16:01.
Reason: Typo.