That presented immediate problems. First, there aren’t that many of the vintage aircraft left, and those that are still flying usually have anachronistic instruments in the cockpit, like GPS.

But the ALIAS robot goes steps further. For example, an array of cameras allows the robot to see all the cockpit instruments and read the gauges. It can recognize whether switches are in the on or ...

But despite all the progress we’ve made, and will certainly continue making, there is still one basic cockpit instrument that remains stubbornly out of reach for most general aviation pilots ...