"An AI Flew a US Air Force Training Aircraft For Over 17 Hours"

An artificial intelligence agent recently flew the Lockheed Martin VISTA X-62A training aircraft for over 17 hours.  VISTA, which stands for Variable In-flight Simulation Test Aircraft, can use software to simulate the performance characteristics of other aircraft.  On this occasion, it mimicked a human pilot instead.  Lockheed stated that the flight took place during a testing period in December.  Lockheed noted that this is the first time that AI has been engaged in such a way on a tactical aircraft.  Lockheed stated that the aim is to use the platform to test aircraft designs that can be flown autonomously.  US Air Force Test Pilot School (USAF TPS) director of research, Dr. M. Christopher Cotting, stated that "VISTA will allow us to parallelize the development and test of cutting-edge artificial intelligence techniques with new uncrewed vehicle designs."  Cotting noted that this approach, combined with focused testing on new vehicle systems as they are produced, will rapidly mature autonomy for uncrewed platforms and allow us to deliver tactically relevant capability to our warfighters.  The USAF recently upgraded the VISTA X-62A with Lockheed's Model Following Algorithm (MFA) and System for Autonomous Control of the Simulation (SACS).  When integrated, these systems help VISTA carry out advanced flight tests that harness autonomy and AI.

Engadget reports: "An AI Flew a US Air Force Training Aircraft For Over 17 Hours"