This may sound sacrilegious, but during a demonstration flight in the Skyryse flight simulator, I realized that this is exactly how a helicopter ought to fly. There is just one flight control, a stick, and forget about managing a collective (power), cyclic (pitch and bank), and pedals (yaw). Skyryse’s SkyOS flight control and operating system eliminates the complexity and makes flying pure fun. At the same time, it’s still possible to make the modified helicopter fly like a helicopter, just like the real thing, even though it’s far easier and much less of a burden on the pilot’s brain. AirVenture visitors who want to try the simulator and see Skyryse’s modified Robinson R66 helicopter can do so at the company’s show exhibit.
Skyryse was founded in 2017 by CEO Mark Groden and has a headquarters facility in Southern California’s aerospace cluster in El Segundo. Flight testing of airborne hardware is done at Camarillo Airport, about 50 miles north and west. The company’s goal is clear: to develop a flight control system using fly-by-wire technology and software to turn existing aircraft—rotorcraft and fixed-wing airplanes—into machines that can be flown by almost anyone but still benefit from their full performance and flight envelopes.
The first commercial product from the Skyryse drawing board is a modified R66. While I was expecting that the Skyryse control system would be bolted onto the R66’s flight controls, sort of like a fancy autopilot, that was not the case. In fact, Skyryse removes not only the cockpit controls but also a big pile of pushrods, bellcranks, and components and replaces it all with its own flight control system, which includes digital engine controls. A visitor to the El Segundo headquarters can see all the removed equipment in display cases near the lobby.
To be clear, even a drop-dead simple-to-fly aircraft is not for everyone. Some skill will always be required, at least in terms of being willing to learn the rules of the road and the tenets of safety, not to mention the limitations of the machine itself. Today’s aircraft, even those with fly-by-wire controls, are complex and require an enormous amount of time and dedication to learn. And despite decades of effort, aircraft haven’t become easier to fly; pilot training times are longer than ever. For example, although sophisticated automation and fly-by-wire flight controls are the norm in modern jets, type rating classes for these aircraft have not become shorter.
Here’s one way of looking at what Skyryse has accomplished, to give it some perspective. A few years ago, I was given a demo flight in Leonardo’s AW609 tiltrotor flight simulator during an airshow. The demo took place after about an hour of briefing on how to fly the complex machine. Flying a tiltrotor is complicated. The pilot has to constantly be aware of what the engines/nacelles are doing, which way they are pointing, and how to manage them during either vertical or semi-horizontal takeoffs and landings. There are new controls to understand, and putting it all together is challenging. Of course, more than a single training session would be required. Coincidentally, my demo pilot for the sim flight, Warren Curry, Skyryse v-p of sales, is a V-22 tiltrotor pilot and was commander of a U.S. Marines tiltrotor squadron.
In contrast to my AW609 experience, the Skyryse briefing took just minutes, and flying the Skyryse R66 simulator was far simpler than any aircraft I’ve ever flown, with the possible exception of Joby’s eVTOL simulator.
There is a term that often comes up for discussion in the eVTOL scene—unified flight control—and this implies that with the application of the right technology, it’s possible to make controls that allow just about anyone to fly the aircraft. From that standpoint, Skyryse’s effort is somewhat similar. What is different is that Skyryse is applying its system to conventional aircraft, not newfangled electric machines, and it plans to offer systems for all types of aircraft, even piston-powered helicopters and airplanes.
Cockpit Layout
The R66 control system consists of a center stick between the two front seats, comfortably located for the right-seater’s left arm or the left-seater’s right arm. I flew from the right seat because that is traditional in this and most helicopters. But in this machine, my seat choice could also have to do with which hand I prefer to use.
There are two displays, a primary flight display (PFD) and a multifunction display (MFD).
The stick moves fore and aft and twists for yaw control. Vertical flight is selected using a sliding half-circle-shaped switch or vertical thumb lever near the top of the stick, easily actuated using a thumb. Push up on the thumb lever to go up, down to descend.
It takes a few minutes to get used to what the controls can and can’t do. Tilting the stick produces a bank, which feels natural. Pushing the stick fore or aft commands the helicopter to move level forward or backward, and here’s where the Skyryse philosophy vastly simplifies helicopter flying. In a traditional helicopter, the cyclic (stick) controls pitch and bank, but moving the cyclic back, for example, pitches the nose up, which causes the helicopter to slow down unless power is added by pulling up on the collective, and don’t forget to step on the correct pedal to keep the yaw in trim when moving the collective. It’s a constant marriage of movement that never stops as long as the rotor is turning, and that’s what takes some time to learn.
In the Skyryse R66, moving the stick fore or aft adjusts the airspeed, and the power automatically adjusts to support the selected speed. To climb, hold the thumb switch up to command a climb rate, then down to descend.
Flying the Skyryse Simulator
Curry positioned the simulator on Runway 26 at Camarillo Airport, where Skyryse does its flight testing. He demonstrated how getting ready to fly is much simpler with SkyOS because it manages all aspects of operating the helicopter, including operating limitations that if exceeded could cause an expensive overspeed or engine overtemp. “This operating system is managing all of that for you,” he explained. “If it recognizes an abnormality or exceedance, it’s going to go ahead and shut the aircraft down. Gone are the days of you and I missing a step, which we’ve all done—hopefully we didn’t cause anything drastic—and then we exceed something…it’s doing it all for you.”
To get ready for takeoff, I pressed the “flight” button on the PFD and the engine responded appropriately, settling into flight idle. The engine start, it should be noted, is also fully automatic. For the takeoff, Curry demonstrated how with a swipe on the PFD, I told SkyOS to pick up into a hover, and the torque climbed, then the helicopter dutifully lifted smoothly into the air and hovered at six feet. I hadn’t yet touched the control stick. As we hovered, the display changed to offer a set down as the automatic option.
“It’s not doing it for you,” he said. “You are still the pilot, you are still in control, but it definitely is providing inputs based on the flight parameters and flight conditions you’re on.”
While hovering, Curry had me do pedal turns, which isn’t quite an accurate term in this helicopter because there are no pedals. I used my left hand on the stick and twisted it to yaw the helicopter, which stayed impeccably balanced during the maneuvering. The more I twisted, the faster the rate of turn, but SkyOS won’t allow exceeding any limitations.
Curry had me yaw the helicopter into its most vulnerable position, with a strong tailwind. “You can see it start to work a little hard. [In the real helicopter], you and I are bouncing the collective because the tail is doing this [moving around]. The system’s working harder, see the tilt on the rotor system? But it’s still able to assess the air data of where the winds are at, what’s going on, and still manage it.”
Next, while still hovering close to the ground, I pushed up on the thumb lever, held it, and watched the helicopter’s rate of climb increase. I let go of the thumb lever and the helicopter settled back into a hover, but now we were at 64 feet. “If we were to drop the collective in a real helicopter,” he said, “it would start a massive rate of descent and potential vortex ring state and at this point, probably not enough altitude to recover.”
Curry then had me push the thumb lever all the way down as hard as I could and hold it; the helicopter started descending but not at more than 300 fpm, and as it neared the ground, it automatically prevented us from colliding with the ground. If a pilot got distracted and didn’t notice the ground rushing up, “it’s going to be there to protect us,” he said.
The SkyOS pilot doesn’t have to use the stick to command the helicopter but can plug in targets into the display. Curry had set 60 knots and 600 feet before we took off, and he also selected a heading. More commands are available on the autoflight page, but we didn’t explore those during my demo.
Manuevering with SkyOS
We were flying at 55 knots and 360 feet, and Curry had me push the thumb lever up and hold it to get a desired rate of climb until we reached 600 feet, then I let the lever spring back to neutral and the helicopter leveled off, still at the same speed. I next tried lateral control by tilting the stick, including a full deflection. SkyOS prevented a high rate of descent or too steep a bank, thus keeping the machine well within its safe envelope but still allowing me to maneuver as I wished. This was a markedly different feeling than flying a real helicopter because I feel constrained in how much I can bank, for example. Curry explained, “[This is] because there’s nothing telling you until you hit it [the bank limit].”
Speed control was next on the menu. Moving the stick fore and aft commands a speed on the PFD, and SkyOS just matches that speed. Pushing the stick forward increases the speed command, and letting go latches that requested speed. Pulling back lowers the speed number.
We picked a spot at the airport to land and I thumbed to 500 feet then continued descending while pulling back on the stick to command a slower speed. “All we’re doing is providing —just like we would in a helicopter—that nice slowdown,” he said. We descended through 60 feet, then slowed to 10 knots and 40 feet, then down to seven feet and zero knots. Then the display offered an auto set down, and I swiped to select that, and down we went for a smooth landing, which SkyOS did properly starting with the left skid touching first.
I tried a manual lift-off, which just means pushing the thumb lever up and then letting go to hover. Pushing forward on the stick, I accelerated to 60 knots and flew around, getting more of a feel for how the controls interact. It is necessary to think about how the control input delivers the commands. For example, if you pull back on the stick while banking, the helicopter will slow to the new commanded speed. So banking normally should be done by lateral movement of the stick, unless a speed change is desired.
I descended close to the runway again so I could try to see if I could maneuver around with precise control the same as in a real helicopter. I found that once I understood what the controls do—that is, the commands that each one generates—I could position the helicopter fairly precisely, at least as well as I could in a real helicopter.
In any case, the pilot still has a lot of control. For example, Curry initiated an auto set-down with a swipe on the display, but then he asked me to wiggle the control stick, and SkyOS gave me back control instantly. The auto set-down comes in handy, he said, if the pilot is tired and wants some help.
Auto Autorotation
I took off again, climbed to 1,000 feet, and lined up with the runway for the autorotation demonstration. Skyryse performed the first automated autorotation on July 22, 2023, at its Camarillo flight test center. That means, according to Skyryse, that the system “quickly recognizes a power failure and sets in motion multiple procedures, and with a push of a button, makes the landing uneventful. From entry to steady descent, it lowers the pitch, aligns the nose, manages aircraft stability, completes the flare, and lands gracefully at the desired landing location.” In Skyryse’s video of the event, the collective automatically lowers to maintain rotor rpm, the cyclic moves aft to ensure airflow through the rotor disk, and at about 150 feet the helicopter flares then pitches forward and executes a perfect engine-out touchdown.
For our demo in the simulator, Curry set up the autorotation while I steered the helicopter toward the desired landing spot, which means the pilot does have some control over the process. At about 150 feet, I pulled the stick back to start the flare, then pushed the thumb lever all the way up. SkyOS automatically kept the rotor rpm in the green and initially targeted 75 knots, later slowing to 60 knots in the glide. After the flare, the helicopter pitched forward and then touched down smoothly. “The anticlimactic nature of what we did is just dramatic,” Curry said.
In a traditional helicopter, the pilot has to use a lot of brainpower to manipulate the three controls to get the helicopter to the right spot at the right altitude and with enough energy to touch down without destroying the machine. “This is really focused on where and how,” he said, “because the system is managing a variety of important factors."
The great benefit of a system like SkyOS is that it not only can execute a perfect autorotation but it will maximize available energy to minimize damage if the engine fails in a segment of the height-velocity curve where autorotation is impossible. In a helicopter, if the engine fails at a relatively low altitude at low speed, there just isn’t enough energy for an autorotation. SkyOS will do its best in that situation.
Designing such a system also means programming SkyOS to prevent situations that could cause trouble. It shouldn’t let the pilot get into a condition that is beyond the helicopter’s capabilities. This could include, for example, mast-bumping in a semi-rigid rotor system like the Robinson design, settling with power, or loss of tailrotor effectiveness.
The beauty of SkyOS is that while it keeps the helicopter flying inside the constraints of its envelope or capabilities, it is still possible to make it do all the helicopter maneuvers and flying actions that make a helicopter so unique. I don’t know if I could pull the cap off a beer bottle using the skids with Skyryse One, but then again, I will need a lot more practice before I can do that in any helicopter.
Skyryse is planning to develop SkyOS for many aircraft types—not just helicopters but fixed-wing airplanes as well. The R66 is expected to receive supplemental type certification next year and will sell for $1.8 million, about $400,000 more than a typically equipped new R66.
While Robinson Helicopter is not working directly with Skyryse, the helicopter manufacturer’s CEO, David Smith, offered this statement to describe the relationship: “We have several partners and customers working on varying levels of autonomy using the R22, R44, and R66 platforms. We are assisting those developers as much as possible to make sure their projects are as safe as can be as they mature the technologies. Because they are independent businesses, our collaborations are generally limited to sharing information about the basic unmodified aircraft. We wish them well on their paths to certification.”
Founder Groden explained the genesis of Skyryse as follows: “As both a pilot and an engineer, I’m very concerned with the lack of evolution within general aviation. Commercial airlines are safer than ever but there are still over a thousand small aircraft crashes every year. Why are small planes using the same complicated analog controls from the 1940s? Why does a helicopter still require both hands and feet just to maintain a hover? The technology exists to do better. It just hasn’t been applied. I started Skyryse to make small aircraft as safe as the big ones. We’ve created a universal flight control system that’s simpler and safer. SkyOS is going to save lives.”
This may sound sacrilegious, but during a demonstration flight in the Skyryse flight simulator, I realized that this is exactly how a helicopter ought to fly. There is just one flight control, a stick, and forget about managing a collective (power), cyclic (pitch and bank), and yaw (pedals). Skyryse’s SkyOS flight control and operating system eliminates the complexity and makes flying pure fun. At the same time, it’s still possible to make the modified helicopter fly like a regular helicopter, just like with all of the controls, even though it’s far easier and much less of a burden on the pilot.
Founded in 2017 by CEO Mark Groden, Skyryse has a headquarters facility in Southern California’s aerospace cluster in El Segundo. Flight testing of airborne hardware is done at Camarillo Airport, about 50 miles north and west. The company’s goal is clear: to develop a flight control system using fly-by-wire technology and software to turn existing rotorcraft and fixed-wing airplanes into machines that can be flown by almost anyone but still benefit from their full performance and flight envelopes.
The first commercial product from Skyryse is a modified Robinson R66. While I was expecting that the Skyryse control system would be bolted onto the R66’s flight controls, sort of like a fancy autopilot, that was not the case. In fact, Skyryse removes not only the cockpit controls but also a pile of pushrods, bellcranks, and components and replaces it with its own flight control system, including digital engine controls.
To be clear, even a drop-dead simple-to-fly aircraft is not for everyone. Some skill will always be required, at least in terms of being willing to learn the rules of the road and the tenets of safety. Today’s aircraft are complex and require an enormous amount of time and dedication to learn. Although sophisticated automation and fly-by-wire flight controls are the norm in modern jets, type rating classes for these aircraft have not become shorter.
To give some perspective of what Skyryse has accomplished, a few years ago I was given a demo flight in Leonardo’s AW609 tiltrotor flight simulator. The demo took place after about an hour of briefing. Flying a tiltrotor is complicated. The pilot has to constantly be aware of what the engines/nacelles are doing, which way they are pointing, and how to manage them during either vertical or semi-horizontal takeoffs and landings. There are new controls to understand and putting it all together is challenging. Coincidentally, my demo pilot for the sim flight, Warren Curry, Skyryse v-p of sales, is a V-22 tiltrotor pilot and was commander of a U.S. Marines tiltrotor squadron.
In contrast to my AW609 experience, the Skyryse briefing took just minutes, and flying the Skyryse R66 simulator was far simpler than any aircraft I’ve ever flown, with the possible exception of Joby’s eVTOL simulator.
Cockpit Layout
The R66 control system consists of a center stick between the two front seats, comfortably located for the right-seater’s left arm or the left-seater’s right arm. I flew from the right seat because that is traditional in this and most helicopters. But in this machine, my seat choice could also have to do with which hand I prefer to use.
There are two displays, a primary flight display (PFD) and a multifunction display (MFD).
The stick moves fore and aft and twists for yaw control. Vertical flight is selected using a sliding half-circle-shaped switch or vertical thumb lever near the top of the stick. Push up on the thumb lever to go up, down to descend.
It takes a few minutes to get used to what the controls can and can’t do. Tilting the stick produces a bank, which feels natural. Pushing the stick fore or aft commands the helicopter to move level forward or backward.
Here’s where the Skyryse philosophy vastly simplifies helicopter flying. In a traditional helicopter, the cyclic (stick) controls pitch and bank, but moving the cyclic back, for example, pitches the nose up, which causes the helicopter to slow down unless power is added by pulling up on the collective, and don’t forget to step on the correct pedal to keep the yaw in trim. It’s a constant marriage of movement that never stops.
In the Skyryse R66, moving the stick fore or aft adjusts the airspeed, and the power automatically adjusts to support the selected speed. Hold the thumb switch up to climb and then down to descend.
Flying the Skyryse Simulator
Curry positioned the simulator on Runway 26 at Camarillo Airport, where Skyryse flight tests. He demonstrated how getting ready to fly is much simpler with SkyOS because it manages all aspects of operating the helicopter, including operating limitations that if exceeded could cause an expensive overspeed or engine overtemp. “This operating system is managing all of that for you,” he explained. “If it recognizes an abnormality or exceedance, it’s going to go ahead and shut the aircraft down. Gone are the days of you and I missing a step, which we’ve all done…it’s doing it all for you.”
To get ready for takeoff, I pressed the “flight” button on the PFD and the engine responded appropriately, settling into flight idle. The engine start is also fully automatic. For the takeoff, Curry demonstrated how with a swipe on the PFD, I told SkyOS to pick up into a hover, and the torque climbed, then the helicopter dutifully lifted smoothly into the air and hovered at six feet. I hadn’t yet touched the control stick. As we hovered, the display changed to offer a set down as the automatic option.
“You are still the pilot, you are still in control, but it definitely is providing inputs based on the flight parameters and flight conditions you’re on,” he said.
While hovering, Curry had me do pedal turns, which isn’t quite an accurate term in this helicopter because there are no pedals. I used my left hand on the stick and twisted it to yaw the helicopter, which stayed impeccably balanced during the maneuvering. The more I twisted, the faster the rate of turn, but SkyOS won’t allow exceeding any limitations.
Next, while still hovering close to the ground, I pushed up on the thumb lever, held it, and watched the helicopter’s rate of climb increase. I let go of the thumb lever and the helicopter settled back into a hover, but now we were at 64 feet. “If we were to drop the collective in a real helicopter,” he said, “it would start a massive rate of descent and potential vortex ring state and at this point, probably not enough altitude to recover.”
Curry then had me push the thumb lever all the way down as hard as I could and hold it; the helicopter started descending but not at more than 300 fpm, and as it neared the ground, it automatically prevented us from colliding with the ground.
The SkyOS pilot doesn’t have to use the stick to command the helicopter but can plug in targets into the display. Curry had set 60 knots and 600 feet before we took off, and he also selected a heading. More commands are available on the autoflight page.
Manuevering with SkyOS
We were flying at 55 knots and 360 feet, and Curry had me push the thumb lever up and hold it to get a desired rate of climb until we reached 600 feet. I let the lever spring back to neutral and the helicopter leveled off, still at the same speed. I next tried lateral control by tilting the stick, including a full deflection. SkyOS prevented a high rate of descent or too steep a bank, thus keeping the machine well within its safe envelope but still allowing me to maneuver. This was a markedly different feeling than flying a traditional helicopter because I feel constrained in how much I can bank.
Speed control was next on the menu. Moving the stick fore and aft commands a speed on the PFD, and SkyOS just matches that speed.
We picked a spot at the airport to land and I thumbed to 500 feet then continued descending while pulling back on the stick to command a slower speed. We descended through 60 feet, slowing to seven feet and zero knots. The display offered an auto set down. I swiped to select that, and down we went for a smooth landing, which SkyOS did properly.
I tried a manual lift-off, which just means pushing the thumb lever up and then letting go to hover. Pushing forward on the stick, I accelerated to 60 knots and flew around, getting more of a feel for how the controls interact. I found that once I understood what the controls do, I could position the helicopter fairly precisely.
Auto Autorotation
I took off again, climbed to 1,000 feet, and lined up with the runway for the autorotation demonstration. For our demo in the simulator, Curry set up the autorotation while I steered the helicopter toward the desired landing spot. At about 150 feet, I pulled the stick back to start the flare, then pushed the thumb lever all the way up. SkyOS automatically kept the rotor rpm in the green and initially targeted 75 knots, later slowing to 60 knots in the glide. After the flare, the helicopter pitched forward and then touched down smoothly. “The anticlimactic nature of what we did is just dramatic,” Curry said.
Skyryse is planning to develop SkyOS for many aircraft types—not just helicopters but fixed-wing airplanes as well. The R66 is expected to receive supplemental type certification next year and will sell for $1.8 million, about $400,000 more than a typically equipped new R66.
Founder Groden explained the genesis of Skyryse as follows: “There are still over a thousand small aircraft crashes every year. Why are small planes using the same complicated analog controls from the 1940s? Why does a helicopter still require both hands and feet just to maintain a hover? The technology exists to do better. I started Skyryse to make small aircraft as safe as the big ones. We’ve created a universal flight control system that’s simpler and safer.”