'I used only my mind to fly a plane around Seattle'

© Solarseven

US avionics giant Honeywell – a company synonymous with the advanced computer systems that control a lot of commercial and military aircraft – has put itself at the forefront of applied neurotechnology after developing a brain-computer interface that allows, in this case a Wired journalist with no previous flying experience, to fly a six-seater turboprop. It’s all in the early stages, of course, we are still at a stage where a conventionally controlled pilot has far quicker responses than someone wearing a “navy blue swimming cap with 32 electrodes attached” that makes the author look like “a steampunk Andre Agassi”, but the long-term implications for the transport industries are enormous.