VSKYLABS Robinson R22 Development News Flash

By concept, all three VSKYLABS Robinson projects (R22/R44/R66) were developed side by side in a tremendous effort and coordination. The R66 was the first to reach v1.0 milestone, followed eight months later by the R44 v1.0 release which was an important stage in the development of several important aspects of the VSKYLABS R22. The R44 v1.0 was also an important milestone in the preparations of the 2nd VSKYLABS R66 variant (planned with the classic analog cockpit an within the project development scheduled road-map).

However, during development, it got clear that the R22 development effort must be shifted down in priorities, for various (good) reasons...

Among the reasons is the fact that the R22 helicopter appearance in the flight-sim world (and in X-Plane) got a bit "flooded"...and there was no good reason to add an additional R22, for sure not before the R66 and R44 helicopters, which were "needed" in X-Plane with a wider and deeper simulation scope...

Developing and updating add-on aircraft/helicopters is a *huge* effort that takes months and years to complete. So while the VSKYLABS R22 development was shifted down in priorities (while going up in "quantity"), the R22 development resources were channeled to other fascinating VSKYLABS projects (including other helis and gyros), and allowed to execute several important existing projects updates, earlier.

At the present, the VSKYLABS R66, R44 and the Cabri G2 are covering the major target categories for mainstream, popular training and general aviation helicopters simulation. So with the several existing R22's out there, there is no severe *void* left with this decision.

In the light of the above, shifting the R22 down in priorities is a good call in several aspects.

At the present, the VSKYLABS Robinson R22 Project is serving in-house for various testing and development purposes. It is still considered as an active-development project but it is on a lower priority and it will be released when time is right. The exact time frame for this has not been set yet.

Source