Flight automation pioneer Skyryse recently opened a 27,000-sq-ft headquarters in El Segundo, California, as it increases the size of the engineering team developing the FlightOS system it says will support single-pilot, fly-by-wire capability under instrument flight rules (IFR) for helicopters like the Robinson R66. The expansion program follows confirmation from the FAA in February that the company's flight control system has met all of the federal agency's means-of-compliance requirements, clearing the way for it to complete applications for supplemental type certificates (STCs) to convert existing aircraft.
The company’s founder and CEO, Mark Groden, who has been working on FlightOS for six years, says his team now has a direct path to bring the technology into commercial service with multiple aircraft. “It means that it’s a clear execution task for us, and we’re in a unique position because no other company has achieved 100 percent means of compliance,” he told AIN. “Part of the reason we can do it is that we didn’t want to take technology off the shelf that the FAA isn’t familiar with, and we’re working to the 10-to-the-minus-9 [safety standard] that is more than what the FAA requires for general aviation aircraft. It wouldn’t be enough just to make these aircraft IFR [capable].”
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