Skyfly Unveils eVTOL VR Motion Flight Simulator, Using Flight Control System on its Axe VCA

Skyfly has unveiled the the UK’s first ful­ly mobile eVTOL flight sim­u­la­tor, which com­bines vir­tu­al real­i­ty (VR) with motion cue­ing.

Mak­ing the announce­ment yes­ter­day (Mon­day), VRM‑2 has been devel­oped in col­lab­o­ra­tion with aero­space sys­tems and human fac­tors spe­cial­ists Myr­i­ad. Designed to be a high­ly flex­i­ble, trans­portable plat­form, it can sup­port air­craft devel­op­ment, cus­tomer demon­stra­tions, research and future pilot train­ing.

A key fea­ture of the sim­u­la­tor is its hard­ware-in-the-loop (HIL) inte­gra­tion, using the Veronte 4x flight con­trol sys­tem used on the pro­duc­tion ver­sion of Skyfly­’s Axe VCA.

This allows the sim­u­la­tor to run the same fly-by-wire archi­tec­ture, con­trol laws and avion­ics inter­faces as the real air­craft. The sys­tem is capa­ble of recre­at­ing ver­ti­cal flight in a ful­ly immer­sive 360-degree vir­tu­al cock­pit envi­ron­ment, enhanced by real­is­tic motion and vibra­tion cues.

For Skyfly, the sim­u­la­tor rep­re­sents a sig­nif­i­cant step for­ward in refin­ing and demon­strat­ing the Axe VCA.  

Michael Thomp­son, CEO of Skyfly, said: “Access to a mobile sim­u­la­tor capa­ble of accu­rate­ly and real­is­ti­cal­ly recre­at­ing the flight pro­files of our air­craft is a major ben­e­fit for us. Using our Veronte 4x-based hard­ware-in-the-loop sys­tem, we can train cus­tomers in a real-world envi­ron­ment using real air­craft hard­ware.

“The pilot and instruc­tor know that the response in the sim­u­la­tor, thanks to our val­i­da­tion against the full-scale hard­ware, is going to be as close as it rea­son­ably can be to real life. This is a very pow­er­ful tool to be able to use.”

VRM‑2 enables seam­less inte­gra­tion between phys­i­cal pilot con­trols and vir­tu­al dis­plays gen­er­at­ed direct­ly from orig­i­nal air­craft CAD data, ensur­ing high fideli­ty between sim­u­lat­ed and real-world cock­pit lay­outs.

Motion onset cues are pro­vid­ed by elec­tric actu­a­tors, while inte­grat­ed seat shak­ers deliv­er vibra­tion cues, fur­ther enhanc­ing real­ism and pilot immer­sion. 

Dr Mike Brom­field, Direc­tor, Myr­i­ad, added: “Hav­ing a mobile flight sim­u­la­tor capa­ble of recre­at­ing ver­ti­cal flight in a ful­ly immer­sive visu­al envi­ron­ment com­bined with real­is­tic motion cues, cre­ates an incred­i­bly real­is­tic envi­ron­ment for research, devel­op­ment and test­ing. 

“Using the real aircraft’s ‘fly by wire’ sys­tem enables seam­less inte­gra­tion of phys­i­cal con­trols and vir­tu­al dis­plays with­in a 360-degree visu­al cock­pit envi­ron­ment cre­at­ed from the orig­i­nal CAD draw­ings.   Motion onset cues pro­vid­ed by the elec­tric actu­a­tors and vibra­tion cues pro­vid­ed by inte­gral seat shak­ers enhance sim­u­la­tor fideli­ty.”

In Novem­ber 2025, Skyfly said its Axe VCA had flown in the Unit­ed States for the first time, com­menc­ing a new phase of its flight test cam­paign.

The US team is led by Elliot Seguin, who brings an excep­tion­al com­bi­na­tion of both elec­tric and IC (inter­nal com­bus­tion) fixed-wing and rotary-wing test expe­ri­ence.

The move enables Skyfly to ben­e­fit from improved year-round weath­er, accel­er­at­ing its test pro­gram. Engi­neer­ing efforts in the UK con­tin­ue with SN002 type con­form­ing air­frame under­way.

For more infor­ma­tion, please vis­it https://skyfly.aero/