Pilatus PC-24 Begins UK Tour

Credit: Angus Batey

This Pilatus PC-24, owned and operated by Windrose Air Jet Charter from its home base in Berlin, is registered as D-CHGN. The aircraft, delivered last year, is pictured during a June 8th stopover at Farnborough Airport, UK, where it was performing promotional duties for Pilatus’s exclusive UK distributor, Oriens Aviation. Windrose offers the aircraft for charter with a standard occupancy of up to eight passengers and 2.54m3 of baggage. The type has a maximum range of 3,400km (2110miles) and a cruising speed of 440kn.

Credit: Angus Batey

“The PC-24 was born around the cargo door,” says Paul Mulcahy, Oriens’ director of flight operations, and from 2015 to 2021, a test pilot for Pilatus who worked on the type’s development. The door was a requirement of the long-term PC-12 customers such as the Royal Flying Doctor Service of Australia, and, Mulcahy explains, its size and placement dictated other key elements of the aircraft’s design. “You have to drive a forklift to the door, so that means you have to have a straight trailing edge to the wing,” he says. “The engine had to be out of the way of the door, so the forklift can go in and out.” The positioning of the landing gear, and repaceable abradable surfaces to the wing flaps, ensures debris disturbed during landing on unpaved strips never reaches the engine.

Credit: Angus Batey

Windrose’s PC-24 is presently configured for six passengers, but a further two seats can be added to the rear of the cabin, replacing two floor-level storage cabinets. The bulkhead separating the cabin from the rear cargo hold can be moved further aft, increasing cabin space.

Credit: Angus Batey

The vestibule between the cabin and the cockpit - at the top of the steps into the aircraft - can be closed off and used as a washroom. The base of the unit below the sink hides a foldaway vacuum-flush toilet; the lower fascia unclips and forms the lower part of a screen dividing the washroom from the cabin, while sliding dividers lock across the upper part of the space.

Credit: Angus Batey

The avionics suite - Advanced Cockpit Environment, or ACE - is by Honeywell, based on the company’s Primus Epic 2.0 and is “essentially the same” as the PC-12, Mulcahy says. “Someone who understands the integration of the avionics system in the PC-12 will master the PC-24 very quickly,” he says. “And of course, some of the bigger, more powerful airplanes have the same avionics suite we’ve got - the later Gulfstreams are all carrying the same thing we’re carrying, Falcons as well. It’s called Epic EASy on those platforms. I used to fly 170 and 190 series Embraers, and that’s broadly similar. So if someone is familiar with those Honeywell systems it’s just a straight read-across to what we’ve got.” The alphanumeric keypad input (square panel, third from top, centre column) is being replaced by a programmable touchscreen on newer models currently on the Pilatus production line.

Credit: Angus Batey

Windrose’s PC-24 on the ground at Farnborough. As a flying experience, the aircraft offers a combination of large-jet substance with small-plane maneuverability. “It feels like an airplane of some substantial, solid nature, but you can still get it in the Swiss valleys and whip around them,” says Mulcahy. “It’s a lovely little jet to fly, but it feels solid and stable like your average airliner. People often ask what it’s like to fly, and I would say it’s like a little 757 or Embraer 170.”