When MIT aeronautics researcher John Hansman bragged that, armed with some up-and-coming technology, he could take a 12-year-old off the street and have him or her flying a plane after only a few minutes of training, Technology Review couldn't resist putting him to the test. Hansman seemed game, so I presented him with a subject: my 12-year-old son, Alex. At stake in this experiment would be a question critical to the long-term vision of the NASA-backed Small Aircraft Transportation System program, which aims to ease highway congestion by making us a nation of pilots. Can an average joe with little training really get behind the controls of a small plane and, fed the right information with the right technology, pilot the aircraft from takeoff through landing?

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