Building 103 (Link Trainer)

Link Trainer Building, RAF Bicester Technical Site

This is a Link Trainer building designed by the Air Ministry's Directorate of Works and Buildings to drawing number 6414/37. It is constructed of Flemish bond brick with steel casements and a flat reinforced concrete roof.

The building has a rectangular plan containing two rooms for the accommodation of Link Trainers. The west elevation features two steel-framed windows flanked by outer doors. The interior retains original doors and joinery.

The Link Trainer was a device invented in 1929 by Edwin Link, an American organ manufacturer, and first introduced to Britain in 1936 as a cost-effective method of training pilots in instrument flying. It comprised a fuselage approximately 10 feet long of timber frame construction covered with plywood or fabric. Powerful bellows enabled the device to simulate basic flying movements such as pitching, banking and turning. Early machines had wings, tailplane and fin with their corresponding control surfaces. The cockpit resembled a typical single-engined aircraft of the period, equipped with six basic instruments plus compass, radio, rudder pedals and control column. Changes in flight attitude were shown by the instruments and relevant control surfaces.

Connections from the trainer led to an instructor's desk where a small three-wheeled trolley called a 'tracking crab' (automatic recorder) reacted to time and rate of movement of the fuselage. One wheel functioned as a pen recorder and traced an accurate course onto a map of the countryside over which the pilot was supposed to be flying. The desk also contained a duplicate set of aircraft instruments to enable assessment of the pilot's flying ability.

This building is one of the permanent standard designs produced by the Air Ministry in the late 1930s. It has special importance for its relationship to RAF Bicester's wartime function as a training centre for Bomber Command and represents a uniquely well-preserved group of both phases of the inter-war expansion of the RAF. It faces the main axial route through the technical site.

The Technical Site at Bicester, separated from the Domestic Site, retains many of the original buildings, mostly dating from 1926 with others added during successive phases of the 1930s Expansion Period.