Can Claude Fly a Plane?

thewhitetulip

Humans can also fly. Once.

travisgriggs

The bit in the middle where it decides to make its control loop be pure P(roportional), presumably dropping the I and D parts, is interesting to me. Seems like a poor choice. I try to fly about once a week, I’ve never really tried to self analyze what my inputs are for what I do. My hunch is that there’s quite a bit of I(ntegral) damping I do to avoid over correcting, but also quite a bit of D(erivative) adjustments I do, especially on approach, in order to “skate to the puck”. Density going to have to take it up with some flight buddies. OR maybe those with drone software control loop experience can weigh in?

userbinator

The real question is, can it keep the plane in one piece?

morpheuskafka

Surely at least part of the issue here is that even an LLM operates in two digit tokens per second, not to mention extra tokens for "thinking/reasoning" mode, while a real autopilot probably has response times in tens of milliseconds. Plus the network latency vs a local LLM.

webprofusion

"Can I Get Claude to Fly A Plane" isn't the same thing. Interesting though, would be a good test for different models but it relies on the test harness being good enough that a human could also use the same info to achieve the required outcome. e.g. if latency of input/output is too slow then nobody could do it.

est

> main issue seemed to be delay from what it saw with screenshots and api data and changing course. This is where I think Taalas-style hardware AI may dominate in the future, especially for vehicle/plane autopilot, even it can't update weights. But determinism is actually a good thing.

leptons

Does Claude know the plane isn't at the car wash?

mihaaly

Friend participating in some sort of simulated glider tournament trained a neural network to fly one some way (don't ask details). I recall rules were changed to ban such, not because of him. Using Claude sounds overkill and unfit the same time.

bottlepalm

AI being able to quickly react to real time video input is the next thing. Computer use right now is painfully slow working off a slow screenshot/command loop.

operatingthetan

We already have advanced autopilots that can fly commercial airliners. We just don't trust them enough to not have human pilots. I would trust the autopilot more than freaking Claude. We already do, every day.

basfijneman

If planes can fly autopilot I assume claude can make a pretty good flight plan. Not sure if claude can react in time if shit hits the fan. "spawning 5 subagents"

otabdeveloper4

Yes, but for a limited time only.

jmward01

The question of 'can it fly' is clearly a 'yes, given a little bit of effort'. Flying isn't hard, autopilots have been around a long time. It is recognizing and dealing with things you didn't anticipate that is hard. I think it is more interesting to have 99% of flying done with automated systems but have an LLM focus on recognizing unanticipated situations and recovering or mitigating them.

progx

Prepare for landing "rate limit exceeded" (Error 429)" ;-)

edu

Besides the article, I think a big issue for this would be the speed of the input-decision-act loop as it should be pretty fast and Claude would introduce a lot of latency in it.

nairboon

Let's hope you don't reach Claude's session limit during approach, while trying to correct a slightly too steep descent angle.

Markoff

I wouldn't really worry about flying, but more about taking off/landing. Related from December 2025: Garmin Emergency Autoland deployed for the first time https://www.flightradar24.com/blog/aviation-news/aviation-sa...

johntopia

If there's a timeline where claude can actually fly a plane, then operating nuclear reactors can be possible as well.

blitzar

Sky King managed it, no reason claude shouldnt be able to.

ramon156

> CRASHED #2, different cause. Plane was stable in a slow descent but between fly.py invocations (~20 sec gap while I logged and computed the next maneuver) there was no active controller. Plane kept descending under its last commanded controls until it hit terrain at 26 ft MSL, 1.7 nm short of the runway. Lesson: never leave the controller idle in flight Gold