Building 103 would have been one of the most important to the scores of trainees that came through RAF Bicester. It was within this small rectangular, two-room building that pilots would have honed their skills without leaving the ground via the newly introduced Link Trainer.
Created by Edwin Link, the son of an organ maker in New York, the Link Trainer was perhaps the world’s first flight simulator. He reputedly found more success selling his new device to amusement parks, where visitors would roll and pitch, dive and climb in a mini cockpit, but in 1936 the Royal Air Force introduced it via JVW Ltd, receiving the first in 1937.
It was cleverly linked to the instructor’s desk, with the dials from the cockpit duplicated for monitoring, and a pen automatically plotted the flight path onto a map. The instructor could also alter the weather, from calm to rough, and it could recreate stalls to train the pilot in how to recover.
The Link Trainer was built at RAF Bicester in 1939, and a year later the site became home to No. 13 Operational Training Unit charged with training pilots ready for squadron duty.
Grade II listed, it was category A at-risk before it was carefully restored to house the growing Heritage Skills Academy. That ensures the building continues its tradition of training the next generation, but today, rather than pilots, it is coachbuilders. Auto-Historica, led by Mark Taylor, pass on their expertise within Building 103.