What do robots learn from pilots?
Robots learn airmanship from pilots: the habits that keep a flight smooth and safe when conditions aren't perfect. Holding a heading in still air is simple for software. Knowing when to abort a landing, or how to hold steady beside a structure in gusty wind, takes experience.
Teams building autonomous drones and air taxis want examples and opinions on things like these:
- Takeoffs and landings in crosswinds and gusts.
- Go-around decisions: when an approach is unstable and it's time to climb away and try again.
- Inspection flights: holding position and distance next to a tower, bridge, roof or wind turbine.
- Smooth control inputs, so the aircraft doesn't overshoot, wobble or hunt for its position.
- Planning a path around obstacles, other aircraft and areas you shouldn't fly through.
- Reading weather: when wind, rain or low visibility means a flight should wait.
Engineers can model lift and drag. What's harder to capture is the decision a good pilot makes, and why. Aviation is one of ten trades on Metagaming; see the rest on the trades page.
What would you actually do?
You'd fly recorded demos in a flight sim, rate clips of autonomous flights and, at the top rank, pilot a real drone remotely. What you can take depends on your rank, and missions open as labs post them.
Everyone starts as a Rookie. Then there are three ways to train:
- Record (from Pro rank). Fly a task a lab asks for in a flight sim on your PC, with our desktop recorder running. That could be landings in gusty wind or an inspection pass. The recorder logs your inputs, timing and game state, never your face, voice or identity.
- Judge (from Elite rank). Watch footage of drone and air taxi flights and label it. Was the approach stable? Was it too close to the structure? Should it have gone around? A pilot's eye is what makes these labels useful.
- Teleop (from Expert rank). Pilot a real drone remotely, live, under a lab's instructions. It's the highest-trust work, for proven trainers only.
When a lab posts a mission that fits your experience, we email you. While you wait, the free skill tests let you prove skills on your pass; the maze game tests navigation in 3D space. If you fly sims for fun, see how to get paid to play flight sims, one of the genres where you can get paid to play games.
How we check your experience
You tell us about your flying when you sign up, and we check your certificate before any mission that depends on it. You never hand over a certificate number or ID to sign up.
Step 4 of the Access Pass asks your industry (pick Aviation), your role, like private pilot or drone pilot, your years flying, and whether you hold a pilot certificate or drone license, as a plain yes or no.
If a mission depends on a certificate, we check it before you take that mission. If you answered no, you can still take missions that don't depend on one, including sim-based work.
What does it pay?
Aviation missions pay per task, like every mission on Metagaming. Most tasks pay $1–$5. We don't promise income.
Each task pays a drop: Common $1, Uncommon $5, Rare $25, Epic $50, Legendary $100, and Mythic $500+ for Genius rank only. Most missions are Common and Uncommon. A task pays once it passes quality review, and every mission shows its drop before you accept it. Rates are estimates and market rates can fluctuate. It's extra money, not a job. See how pay per task works.