Flight has fascinated mankind for centuries. Already Leonardo da Vinci attempted to comprehend the dynamics of flight and construct the first flying machines. Today we transport enormously heavy loads through the air, as well as tiny unmanned flying objects. In the experiment "Autonomous Flight Systems — how technology gets airborne" students investigate how complex control strategies are derived so that flight systems remain stable when controlled by simple human commands. The focus is on the man-machine interface: how can controlling be designed to be as "intuitive" as possible, and what is intuition, anyway?