NEW
YORK, NY, May 2, 2003 - L-3 Communications (NYSE: LLL) today
announced that Ed Link, who developed the first pilot training
device in 1929, will be inducted on May 3 into the National
Inventors Hall of Fame (NIHF) in Akron, OH.
Link, whose legacy lives on today within L-3 Communications'
Link Simulation and Training division, joins 16 other major
aviation and aerospace leaders in this year's NIHF inductee
class. This year's ceremony will bring the NIHF's total number
of inductees to 201 since it was first founded in 1973 by
the United States Patent and Trademark Office and the National
Council of Patent Law Associations.
"Ed Link's contributions to enhancing pilot training and
making aviation safer around the world are extraordinary,"
said Jim Dunn, president of L-3 Communications' Link Simulation
and Training division. "As a visionary 75 years ago he recognized
the tremendous value a ground-based flight trainer could bring
in improving the skills of both new and experienced pilots.
By inventing the first pilot training device and continuing
to make significant contributions throughout his aviation
career, Ed Link spawned the creation of what today is a multi-billion
dollar simulation industry." Link's odyssey in becoming the
"Father of Flight Simulation" began in 1927 when, at the age
of 23, he began working for his father at the Link Piano and
Organ Factory in Binghamton, NY. He built pianos and tuned
organs, a job that required a thorough knowledge of the pumps,
valves and bellows that directed the air power within the
instrument. It was during this period that Link, whose passion
was aviation, began to wonder if he could create a training
device that could give pilots the skills they would need to
safely fly.
Link's idea to develop a ground-based flight trainer was
given a boost during a chance meeting with a group of fliers
at Wright Field, OH in 1927. In a book on his life, "From
Sky to Sea," Link said that he watched as a "Major Ocker"
tried to help a group of aviators at Wright Field understand
the problems with direction that are encountered while in
flight.
"He'd blindfold the people and twist them around in this
seat a few times, then ask them which way they were turning,"
Link states in the book. "They invariably said the wrong way
and that was one of the things that gave me the idea that
you could make a whole airplane to train a pilot to do everything.
He (Major Ocker) was merely demonstrating… that you couldn't
tell where you were going by sight or feel. You had to have
an instrument that told you where you were turning and whether
you were flying straight or level."
Over the next 18 months, Link worked in his father's piano
and organ factory's basement to create a machine that could
mimic the experiences of flying an airplane without ever leaving
the ground. Link applied the principles he had mastered in
building fine organs to the design of his new flight training
device. The pilot trainer's stubby wooden cockpit fuselage
was mounted on organ bellows that Link had borrowed from his
father's piano factory. An electric pump drove the organ bellows
that allowed the trainer to bank, climb and dive as a pilot
operated the controls in the cockpit.
Link received a patent for his new pilot trainer on April
14, 1929, the first in a long series of patents that he would
receive for continued flight simulation innovations. Link
upgraded the trainer in 1933 to include aviation instruments
in common use at the time, such as radio aids and gauges that
could tell a pilot if he was flying level. From instrument
flight training to new navigation techniques to the first
trainer designed to simulate flight in a jet-powered aircraft,
Link trainers would continue to evolve and set new standards
of excellence in pilot training.
Today, Link simulators are providing training for pilots
and aircrews on some of the world's most advanced military
aircraft. Link has built simulators for aircraft platforms
including the B-2, F-117, F/A-22, F/A-18, F-16, C-130, T-45
and a wide range of attack, reconnaissance and transport helicopters.
Link Simulation and Training is a systems integration organization
that specializes in delivering and supporting training systems
and equipment that enhance operational proficiency. Link has
major operations in Arlington, TX; Binghamton, NY; Orlando,
FL; Broken Arrow, OK; and Phoenix, AZ.
Headquartered in New York City, L-3 Communications is a leading
merchant supplier of Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance
(ISR) systems and products, secure communications systems
and products, avionics and ocean products, training devices
and services, microwave components and telemetry, instrumentation,
space and navigation products. Its customers include the Department
of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, selected U.S.
Government intelligence agencies, aerospace prime contractors
and commercial telecommunications and wireless customers.
To learn more about L-3 Communications, please visit the
company's website at www.L-3Com.com.
Safe Harbor Statement under the Private Securities Litigation
Reform Act of 1995: Except for historical information contained
herein, the matters set forth in this news release are forward-looking
statements. The forward-looking statements set forth above
involve a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause
actual results to differ materially from any such statement,
including the risks and uncertainties discussed in the company's
Safe Harbor Compliance Statement for Forward-looking Statements
included in the company's recent filings, including Forms
10-K and 10-Q, with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
