Vette reportedly spent a year training three rescue dogs to fly an airplane — even performing basic aerobatics, such as figure-eights.
As part of the canine training regimen he constructed a simple plane simulator by using colored lights to tell the puppy pilot which direction to fly; blue for left, red for right and white to continue straight ahead.
"It takes a lot of training and a lot of work and integration to build that collaboration, but it's amazing, the more I've flown with the dogs the more intuitive they get," Vette told news.com.au.
According to the trainer, the first successful flight lasted 15 minutes and was performed by a dog named Reggie. However, the experiment was considered complete only after all three dogs successfully performed figure-eight maneuvers in front of a public audience.
A video camera inside the cockpit of the plane showed Vette removing his hands from the steering column, leaving the dog in control while an assistant gave colored light commands.
"We love to do these crazy and amazing performances but at the end of the day we're trying to show that rescue dogs are smart dogs, this is why we're doing it," Vette said.
It is not known whether the dogs can take off or land an aircraft.
