Skyryse technology aims to eliminate general aviation fatalities.
WATCH HAI’s
James Viola, NTSB’s Bruce Landsberg demo Skyryse FlightOS
By James T. McKenna T Skyryse’s
current goal is to see an R66
(left) equipped with an
STC-approved
FlightOS in daily commercial service by September
2024. (Robinson Helicopter Co. Photo)
With FlightOS, Skyryse CEO Mark Groden (right) is
fulfilling a childhood dream of
developing safer ways to travel. (Skyryse Photo)
RAPPED IN THE BACK SEAT during repeated five-hour car trips across the American Midwest to visit family as a child, Mark Groden began to imagine better, safer ways to make the journey. Airlines weren’t an option, since the
40-minute flight entailed a two-hour–plus drive each way. Private aircraft also were out: Groden’s parents weren’t pilots, and they lacked the means to stay current in an aircraft even if they had been. Now, seven years after earning
a doctorate in engineering from the University of Michigan, Groden is nearing fulfillment of his childhood dream. Skyryse (pronounced “SKY- rise”), the El Segundo, California– based company he founded in 2016, is working toward earning an FAA supplemental type certificate (STC) to install an automated flight control system on the Robinson R66. Te company, which has partnered with Robinson on the project since 2020, says it aims to have an STC-equipped R66 flying in commercial service daily by about September 2024. “A lot of people have realized that
we have a transportation problem,” Groden, Skyryse’s CEO, told ROTOR at HAI HELI-EXPO 2023 this past March. “Many are trying to develop new aircraft types, electric vertical takeoff and landing [eVTOL] ones, and what have you. But to me, the problem always felt like it was more, How do you make existing pilots and existing aircraft more capable, safer, and have higher utility?”
Fly by Wire for Any Aircraft To reach that goal, Skyryse has developed a suite of tech- nologies (or “technology stack”) to replace a currently certificated aircraft’s flight control system with a fly-by-wire, IFR-certificated operating system called FlightOS. Skyryse aims to have FlightOS certificated to 14 CFR Part 25
being retrofitted or installed on a production line on any aircraft, Groden says. While the R66 STC is Skyryse’s lead project, he says, the company has agreements to pursue such certifications with four other major aircraft manufac- turers, which he declines to name. Robinsons are considered among the most challenging aircraft for an STC application from the standpoints of volume, weight, power, and flight-control responsiveness requirements. Te Skyryse design replaces the R66’s cyclic, collective,
and anti-torque pedals with triply redundant, dissimilar systems linked to actuators on the swashplate. Te system incorporates redundant power supplies and is operated by the pilot through two touchscreen flight controls, which the company describes as “simple and intuitive,” and a
JUNE 2023 ROTOR 41
commercial airliner airworthiness standards, with a pro- jected failure rate of 10–9
, or 1 failure in 1 billion operations.
(Tat’s three orders of magnitude greater than the standard required of most certificated helicopters and general aviation airplanes.) Te helicopter STC would also comply with Part 27 for normal category rotorcraft. FlightOS is intended to be aircraft agnostic, capable of
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68
