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.
The flight took place during a testing period in December. This is the first time that AI has been engaged in such a way on a tactical aircraft, Lockheed says. The aim is to use the platform to test aircraft designs that can be flown autonomously.