---
title: "Synthetic Training"
description: "The US Navy's wartime term (Luis de Florez's \"Special Devices Desk\") for simulator-based training, starting from Edwin Link's pipe-organ-pneumatic flight trainers (1931)."
type: "glossary-term"
canonical_url: "https://antikythera.wiki/terms/synthetic-training"
md_url: "https://antikythera.wiki/md/terms/synthetic-training"
last_updated: "2026-09-06"
site: "Antikythera Wiki"
---

# Synthetic Training

> A working definition written for this wiki from the reading notes; not Antikythera's own wording. From Antikythera Wiki (https://antikythera.wiki/terms/synthetic-training), an independent guide to Antikythera's published work.

The US Navy's wartime term (Luis de Florez's "Special Devices Desk") for simulator-based training, starting from Edwin Link's pipe-organ-pneumatic flight trainers (1931). De Monchaux's point is that the demand for a trainer switchable between aircraft — even unbuilt ones — is what drove Forrester to abandon analog control for real-time digital computing (ASCA → Whirlwind → SAGE), so the real-time computer is a by-product of simulation, not the reverse. Apollo's simulators fused this physical-trainer lineage with SAGE's digital one; Appleyard then imported the same "vet the unbuilt" logic into urban design at the BESL.

## Appears in

- [Some Movements of Models](https://antikythera.wiki/work/journal/movementsofmodels) (2026-04-09)
- [Infinity Mirror](https://antikythera.wiki/work/journal/infinitymirror) (2025-05-10)

_Glossary generated 2026-09-06._