---
title: "Pilot Turns The Controls for His Airplane Over to His Robotic Co-Pilot"
description: "During a DARPA-funded test flight last week, a test pilot transferred control of his twin-engine plane to his co-pilot, a \"spiderlike array of rods and wires\" bolted to the plane's controls."
date: "2015-07-25"
modified: "2015-08-13"
authors:
  - name: "Kif Leswing"
    link: "https://futurism.com/authors/kif_leswing"
url: "https://futurism.com/pilot-turns-the-controls-for-his-airplane-over-to-his-robotic-co-pilot-2"
categories:
  - "Robotics"
  - "Robots and Machines"
tags:
  - "robotics"
---

# Pilot Turns The Controls for His Airplane Over to His Robotic Co-Pilot

![](<https://futurism.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/planes-without-pilots2.jpg>)

- Robots fly planes all the time these days. Drones aren't new. But there are few projects looking at how to use what we've learned from drones to augment manned flight.
- The project is called Aircrew Labor In-Cockpit Automation System, or ALIAS, and it's funded by DARPA. The test flight was administered by Aurora Flight Sciences which is working with researchers at MIT and Duke.
- When ALIAS is complete, it should be possible to install the robot in many airplane cockpits, even the back seat of a jet fighter.