SkyRyse has announced $200 million in funding to accelerate the development of its flight automation system, FlightOS.

Additionally, the company has recently brought in two new advisors, Michael Huerta, the former head of the FAA and Chris Hart, former chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), to help guide its FAA certification process. Huerta spent seven years leading the FAA and Hart spent over a decade in senior positions at the NTSB.

SkyRyse's FlightOS replaces the controls in a typical cockpit with touchscreen tablets and a joystick, and says its fly-by-wire hardware and software handles everything else. The technology is designed to protect the pilot from exiting the flight envelope, removes nearly all of the complexities of flying and safely manages the aircraft through emergencies. SkyRyse claims pilots can learn to fly a suitably equipped aircraft in minutes, instead of weeks, and the system can safely fly in zero-visibility conditions.

The system includes envelope protection, complete emergency management and terrain and obstacle avoidance. SkyRyse claims the system will safely land any aircraft in the case of engine out and last month a SkyRyse-enabled helicopter autonomously entered an autorotation and controlled the descent while gliding to earth without engine power or pilot intervention.

“The general aviation industry is about to change forever,” says SkyRyse CEO and founder, Dr. Mark Groden. “We're on a mission to empower anyone to fly anywhere in any aircraft as safely as the most experienced pilots in the world. Our technology will usher in a new era of mobility, from fighting fires in remote areas to relieving traffic in crowded cities.”

“General aviation hasn't improved its technology in decades,” says Rob Broggi, portfolio manager at Monashee Investment Management. “Technology has the potential to not just make flight safer, but to radically change our transportation system.”

Funding was led by Fidelity Management & Research Company and Monashee Investment Management. ArrowMark Partners, Republic Capital, Raptor Group, Infinite Capital, Embedded Ventures, Fortistar, K3 Ventures, Rosecliff, SV Pacific Ventures, former Blackstone CFO Laurence Tosi, and Dmitry Balyasny founder of BAM Hedge Fund also participated in the round. Previous investors Venrock, Eclipse Ventures and Fontinalis Partners also participated.