[treetoppin]

I’m having trouble digging into their tech stack and can mostly just find advertising copy, but from what I can tell they must be integrating software (run on an iPad) into the flight controls. Which makes this a fancy skin on an automatic flight control system, something that most larger helicopters have to varying degrees. I’m not really sure what the actual product that Skyryse has developed. If they are including the requisite servos to manipulate flight controls into their hardware stack then their business proposition is going to run into the problem of any modifications to the flight control system (both digital and mechanical) to that level will necessitate a new type certificate from the FAA. That makes this system far less modular and turn key then they seem to be selling.

The reason you don’t see small helicopters or fixed wing aircraft with complex autopilot systems coupled to the flight controls is that it’s expensive for a lot of the reasons you want it to be - the reliability, airworthiness and usability requirements that make it safe are also expensive to implement. At that price point it’s usually easier to have a human do all that work, especially for the types of missions those aircraft do. The technology has been there for decades, and there’s probably a reason why it hasn’t trickled down to these sorts of small aircraft yet.

Also, do you really want your flight control system to be entirely reliant on ensuring that the latest update to iOS doesn’t inadvertently brick the app that lets you control your aircraft? Let alone the possibility of someone exploiting a vulnerability in iOS to degrade your flight performance. There’s a reason that flight software is not trivially updated.

[RNCTX]

Helicopters don’t generally have autopilots but for fixed wing, most autopilots have a serial service port that can fly the device.

It’s not a stretch to go from there to a Bluetooth -> serial adapter. I remember years ago one android app even went to the extent of documenting how to do so.

Most helicopter 135 operators self-limit to VFR only, perhaps this is something like a VFR only autopilot they have in mind?