Skyryse Unveils Skylar AI Assistant to Reduce Pilot Workload

Skyryse, the California company developing simplified fly-by-wire controls for helicopters and aeroplanes, unveiled Skylar on 29 September 2025. Skylar is an AI flight assistant built into SkyOS, the company's flight operating system. It is designed to take on routine communication, planning and monitoring tasks so that pilots have more capacity to fly the aircraft and make decisions.

Skyryse said Skylar would be available across the aircraft types SkyOS is being fitted to, covering helicopters and aeroplanes in private, commercial, emergency services and military use. The company planned to show SkyOS configurations at the NBAA Business Aviation Convention and Exhibition in Las Vegas on 14 to 16 October 2025. No launch date or price for Skylar was announced.

What Skylar does

Skyryse describes Skylar as an always-on assistant that works from preflight planning through engine start, flight and shutdown. The functions announced were:

• Communications support: Skylar listens to, transcribes and interprets ATIS broadcasts and air traffic control (ATC) transmissions, including NOTAMs, weather and hazard information. It keeps a log of ATC calls and suggests responses based on the aircraft's current state. On SkyOS-equipped aircraft, the pilot can carry out a cleared instruction, such as a heading or altitude change, with a single swipe that engages the autoflight system.
• Traffic monitoring: it tracks nearby aircraft broadcasting on ADS-B to improve situational awareness in busy airspace.
• Flight planning: it builds and files flight plans using real-time weather and traffic data, advises whether a route is safe to fly and identifies nearby airports as alternates.
• Route and fuel calculations: it computes fuel burn from speed and weather and suggests routings optimised for time, efficiency or a smoother ride.
• Weather monitoring: it watches TAFs, METARs and SIGMETs, alerts the pilot to hazards such as severe weather and icing, and simplifies filing pilot reports (PIREPs).
• Checklists and system health: because it is connected to the SkyOS sensors and flight control computers, it can flag system faults or anomalies during pre- and post-flight checks.

Skyryse said Skylar combines large language model capabilities, used for understanding speech and text, with a deterministic, rules-based framework for processing aircraft data. That distinction matters in aviation: certification authorities require predictable, testable behaviour from anything that influences the flight path, which generative AI on its own cannot guarantee.

Founder and chief executive Mark Groden compared the move to the way people already use voice assistants at home and in their cars. He said the safer path for aviation was not to replace pilots but to put them "more firmly in control" using automation.

SkyOS and Skyryse One

Skylar depends on SkyOS, the company's core product. SkyOS replaces conventional mechanical flight controls with a triple-redundant fly-by-wire system, a single control stick and two touchscreens. The company describes it as aircraft-agnostic, meaning the same software and hardware architecture can be adapted to different airframes.

The first application is Skyryse One, a modified Rolls-Royce-powered Robinson R66 five-seat helicopter. The FAA approved Skyryse to begin for-credit certification flight testing in May 2025, and the company said the FAA had granted final design approval for the SkyOS flight control computers during 2025. At the time of the Skylar launch, Skyryse was taking $2,500 reservations and planned to begin deliveries in 2026.

Skyryse has also flown SkyOS on a Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk, under an agreement with the US Army covering pilot training and optionally piloted capability, and on a Cirrus SR22, its first fixed-wing installation. It has contracts or partnerships for integrations on further types, including the Airbus H125 and H130, with customers such as Air Methods.

Why pilot workload matters

Single-pilot operations in general aviation and helicopter flying leave one person to fly, navigate, communicate and monitor systems at the same time. Radio communication, weather interpretation and replanning after a diversion are among the most demanding tasks, especially in poor weather or busy terminal airspace. Loss of control and controlled flight into terrain remain leading causes of fatal accidents in these sectors, and high workload is a frequent contributing factor.

Several manufacturers have been moving in the same direction. Garmin's Autoland and Autothrottle systems, for example, automate specific emergency and flight management tasks. Skylar differs in using language models to interpret ATC and weather information and present it in a form the pilot can act on quickly.

Whether pilots can rely on Skylar for operational decisions will depend on how the FAA and other regulators treat it. Speech transcription and suggested readbacks are advisory, but linking a suggested response to an autoflight command means the system's accuracy will come under close scrutiny. Skyryse has not said what level of approval it is seeking for Skylar.

What has happened since

In February 2026 Skyryse closed a Series C round of more than $300 million at a valuation of $1.15 billion, led by Autopilot Ventures and Fidelity. The company said it would use the money to accelerate FAA certification of SkyOS and extend it to more aircraft types, and it said Skyryse One deliveries were expected later in 2026.