Under the Hood
War Eagle Field, Lancaster · January 1944
The new year opened in Los Angeles, on a two-day pass, and closed back at War Eagle with night flying and the Link. The address on the envelopes was now the 1084th Army Air Forces Flying Training Detachment, Class 44-D, Lancaster. Upper class 44-C shipped out on 6 January. Austin’s class became the upper school.
Dear Mother and All, […] At 9:30 tonite I go to take an hour training in LINK Trainer. This Link training would cost $35 an hour to a civilian. I have already got 8 hours and will get 12 more while at this field. We begin flying instruments in the plane beginning tomorrow. we have a hood over us and can't see a speck of light outside of the plane. That's to teach us to fly through fog and clouds, etc. when you can't see the ground. The instructor will be right in the front seat though to keep you out of trouble. The (44c) class is leaving here tomorrow nite and a new class will come in - we are the upper school now Love to all Austin
Historical note — the Link trainerAustin had first mentioned the Link in November at Dos Palos. At Lancaster it became a night job. Periods ran from 7:30 to 11:30. Some cadets left a day of flying and climbed into the box at half past ten.
Edwin A. Link of Binghamton, New York, built the machine in 1929 out of organ bellows and a wooden cockpit. Compressed air made the box pitch, roll, and yaw. The hood shut out the room. On a table beside it an instructor watched the “crab,” a little ink-footed crawler that traced the student’s heading on a paper map. A crooked line was a crooked flight. The Army bought Links by the thousand after 1941 because cloud and night were killing more cadets than gunnery ever would.
The same work then moved into the Vultee. A black hood over the rear cockpit; takeoff on instruments; climb, turns, and speed changes with nothing but the panel. The instructor in front kept the real sky from colliding with another ship.
On 10 January he flew the desert cross-country he had plotted in December: War Eagle to Mojave, the dry lake, Inyokern, Daggett, and home. He came back “right on the beam.” About six classmates got lost. One put down at Twenty-Nine Palms. Night work followed — dual for two hours, then solo, often the last period, flying an auxiliary field twenty miles out and bringing the ship home after midnight because the squadron commander had asked who was steady enough for the ride back.
Dear Mother & sis, […] I fly the plane blind one period every day - all except landing it. Take off under a black hood & climb out to 4000 ft […] Link Training - well that is practicing for blind flying in a plane that stays on the ground but gives you the same feeling as if you were flying. It really is a complicated instrument. On a table outside the plane is an instrument that records your flight path on a paper. It draws lines exactly like you would have flown if you had been in the air - just a safer way to practice but gives the same results. Love to all. Austin
Historical note — January 1944While he learned the beam over the Mojave, the war moved on two coasts. On 22 January the Allies landed at Anzio, south of Rome. On the 27th the Red Army lifted the siege of Leningrad after 872 days. In the Pacific the Marshall Islands campaign was forming; Jack, from home, was already in that fight. Austin still had not chosen fighters or bombers. He had signed for heavy bombardment at Santa Ana. A fifteen-day furlough after April wings was the rumor on the post.