Droid pilots beat humans at air-to-air refuelling

The Pentagon killer-boffin agency DARPA (the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency) has made another move forward in its plan to replace all US military humans with robots. The latest trick the droids have learned is that of flying a plane during air-to-air refuelling.

Air-to-air refuelling, in which a military aircraft tops up its supplies by plugging in to a pipe trailing from a tanker plane, is a key military capability and one of the trickier piloting feats. Now that robots can do it, unmanned aircraft can potentially stay airborne for very long periods, limited only by maintenance requirements.

Over the past year, the AARD system has apparently conducted 11 air-to-air refuelling flights without human input. The trials took place using an F-18 fighter jet operated as a testbed by NASA. The F-18 had a human pilot aboard during the trials as a backup, but the droid pilot required no help from its meatsack passenger. It was able to jack the F-18's fuelling probe into a basket trailing behind a refuelling tanker in the toughest of conditions.

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