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DALLAS—Robinson Helicopters has announced key upgrades to its turbine-powered R66 rotorcraft as part of a product family refresh and a response to emerging competitors in the small single-engine helicopter market sector.
Called the R66NxT, the upgrade includes an all-glass instrument display, impact-resistant windshield, two-axis autopilot as standard, and “Next Generation” trim and paint schemes. An additional limited production “R66 Riviera” will also be offered with advanced Garmin avionics and a three-axis autopilot.
“We’ll unveil two versions of the R66 that we are confident are a better value proposition than what Dr. Hill is presenting, and I know that because he’s an R66 owner,” says Robinson CEO David Smith, referring to Hill Helicopter founder Jason Hill and the UK company’s competing HX/HC50 family of single-engine light helicopters now in development.
“We put all the instruments under glass. We’ve integrated a standard two-axis autopilot from Garmin, added an optional third axis, and we have bird strike windows in the standard design,” Smith says. “The style, the paint scheme, the leather, the touch, everything, is a massive step up from our current designs—and the upholstery team that does all this work on site at Torrance,” he adds referring to Robinson’s California production site.
Much of the new interior work was done in cooperation with a design team that had recent experience in the automotive industry. “These were the people that did all the latest generation EV vehicles like Rivian and Tesla, so we had a lot of creative voices that led to what we are going to show in the R66NxT,” Smith says.
Deliveries of the initial R66NxT are planned to start in 2026–“or maybe earlier, depending upon certification,” Smith says. “We have certification steps still to go on the glass cockpit, in particular, and getting everything down to integrated glass has some steps with the regulators that’s going to take a bit of time, and then validation has to happen. But our hope is that we can start deliveries of those early,” he adds.
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