How did a 1973 submersible crisis show the perils & promise of high-tech underwater exploration? On Now & Then, @HC_Richardson & @jbf1755 discussed American antecedents to the Titan tragedy. In the Time Machine, I look at the Johnson Sea Link incident: cafe.com/article/safety…
The Johnson Sea Link was the brainchild of Edwin A. Link. Raised in Binghamton, NY in the 1910s, Link’s father made organs & player pianos. Here’s an ad for the “Link-Es-Trion,” popular in roller rinks (@billboard, April 14, 1917):
The younger Link loved tinkering with the bellows & other parts of his father’s pianos. He also became fascinated with flying, and barnstormed in the 1920s, meeting aviation legends like Charles Lindbergh—Link at far right here (@bingulibraries, Nov. 4, 1928):
Link married his passion for machines with his passion for flying, crafting in 1928 the first marketable flight simulator, the Link Trainer. Here’s Link in this pioneering model (@bingulibraries, 1928):
In the mid-1930s, the Army Air Corps—after a string of training accidents—decided to invest in Link’s innovation. By the outbreak of World War II, whole rows of Link trainers lined military flight centers (@csmonitor, March 23, 1940):
The War obviously necessitated many further trainers. Here’s a little collage of cadets training in Link’s devices across the country (@bingulibraries, 1943):
Link continued to update the original trainer, creating larger models complete with advanced projected terrains and overhead domes (@therotarian, Dec. 1944):
By the 1950s, the trainers were looking downright space-age. In 1954, defense contractor General Precision Equipment bought up Link Aviation (@bingulibraries, 1955):
Link then turned some of his focus from the skies toward the seas. He constructed the Sea Diver, a $750,000 laboratory ship, learned to dive, and started bringing his family on quests to look for Columbus’s anchors, ancient ship wrecks, and Roman coins (@PopSci, July 1963):
One quest brought the Links to the sunken port of Caesarea, Israel, while another probed the subterranean Port Royal of Jamaica (@jerusalempost, June 24, 1960):
In the mid-1960s, Link began to build submersibles. He teamed up @JNJNews VP & Heir J. Seward Johnson to construct the Johnson Sea Link, which Link built in part in the backyard of his own Binghamton home (@bingulibraries, 1969):
The complex vessel had space for up to 5 and could descend 3,000 feet under the sea. There was a front bubble for a pilot & a scientific observer, and a back diver chamber (@PopSci, Sept. 1971):