Skyryse’s automated flight control system, FlightOS, has met all of the FAA’s means-of-compliance requirements, clearing the way for supplemental type certificates (STCs) applications, starting with the Robinson R66 helicopter. According to the company, the outcome of the recently completed system review means the FAA will not require additional rulemaking to cover any aspect of the system’s hardware, software, or human-factor components.
FlightOS is intended to improve safety by reducing pilot workload and training needs rather than displacing crew from aircraft cockpits. Skyryse said the technology will bring commercial aviation safety standards to general aviation, which “suffers from risks associated with pilot errors and delays in poor weather.”
The equipment replaces some of the complex controls in a typical general aviation cockpit with a touchscreen tablet display and a joystick. Fly-by-wire hardware and software handle most of the core piloting functions, according to Skyryse, preventing pilots from inadvertently exceeding safe flight envelopes. The company claims that training pilots to interact with FlightOS takes only a few minutes.
California-based Skyryse said it designed the system to the 10-to-the-minus-nine (10-9) safety standards used as the benchmark for commercial aviation safety, which equates to a one-in-a-billion chance of a catastrophic system failure. The system is based on a triple-redundant fly-by-wire system with dissimilar architecture that removes mechanical complexity and adds “highly intelligent” computers.
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