Pilatus Aircraft

As of October 2026 – On the general aviation apron, between the Gulfstreams and Falcons, stands a small jet with a high tail, and at the rear left a door opens wide enough for a Euro pallet. A few positions further on, a single-engine turboprop with exactly the same door is waiting. Both come from the same house: Pilatus Aircraft of Stans in central Switzerland. The manufacturer is small compared with Airbus or Boeing, but surprisingly present – from air rescue in Australia to pilot training across half of Europe. If you know its families, you turn a chance find into a confident identification.

From maintenance shop to aircraft manufacturer

The story begins on December 16, 1939. The industrialist Emil Georg Bührle founds Pilatus Flugzeugwerke AG in Stans, named after the local mountain above Lake Lucerne. The location is no coincidence: in the middle of the war, a site as far from the borders as possible was sought, tucked against the mountains. For the first years, Pilatus is mainly a maintenance operation for the Swiss Air Force. Its own designs, like the SB-2 Pelikan mountain aircraft, remain one-offs.

The first real success comes with the trainers P-2 (first flight 1945) and P-3. In parallel, Pilatus builds fuselage parts under license for the Air Force’s de Havilland Vampires and Venoms. The breakthrough on the world market comes in 1959 with the PC-6 Porter, a rugged short-takeoff aircraft that lands on glaciers, meadows and gravel strips. As early as 1960, a Porter takes part in a Himalayan expedition, and a little later the first aircraft flies in Alaska. From here on, the formula applies that still shapes the company today: robust aircraft for difficult conditions, built in Switzerland.

From the 1970s, the focus shifts toward the military. The PC-7 Turbo Trainer becomes an export hit, and the PC-9 follows in the mid-1980s. At the end of the 1980s, development of the PC-12 begins, which finally brings Pilatus into civil business aviation. In December 2000, the parent company Unaxis, formerly Oerlikon-Bührle, sells the company to a group of Swiss investors. Since then Pilatus has been independent and has expanded its lineup with the PC-21 trainer and the PC-24 business jet. For 2025, the manufacturer reports revenue of about 1.67 billion Swiss francs.

A side note for film fans: the plant in Stans served as a location for the James Bond film Goldfinger.

The Pilatus families at a glance

What counts for you at the fence is mainly which type is currently in front of you. The table sorts the Pilatus types you may meet in Europe with their key features.

In flight plans and tracking services, the types appear under their own ICAO type designators, such as PC12 for the PC-12 and PC24 for the jet. The codes don’t distinguish between sub-versions: a PC-12 NG and a PC-12 PRO carry the same code. How to read such data correctly is explained in the article Flight tracking with ADS-B.

PC-12 – the workhorse of general aviation

You see no Pilatus more often than the PC-12. The single-engine pressurized turboprop has flown since 1991 and has become the company’s success model. A single PT6 engine from Pratt & Whitney Canada powers a fuselage with room for up to nine passengers. That makes the PC-12 an all-rounder: corporate aircraft, air ambulance, small freighter or platform for special missions. A particularly well-known operator is the Royal Flying Doctor Service in Australia, and the US Air Force uses a military derivative as the U-28A.

From the outside, the versions have barely changed over three decades. The PC-12 NG brought a glass cockpit from 2008, the NGX a digital engine control with autothrottle and a five-blade propeller from 2019, and the PC-12 PRO introduced in 2025 a new Garmin cockpit whose functions include Autoland. For spotters, that means you recognize the family instantly, but the version often only via registration and database.

Three features are typical: a propeller in the nose, a high T-tail and the big cargo door. There are also small, upturned winglets. You’ll find the direct comparison with other propeller aircraft on the pages for the DHC-6 Twin Otter and the much smaller Cessna 172.

PC-24 – the jet for short runways

With the PC-24, Pilatus entered the business jet market. Unveiled in 2013 at the EBACE trade show in Geneva, it flew for the first time on May 11, 2015 and received certification in Europe and the US in 2017. The first aircraft went to the American launch customer PlaneSense in February 2018. Pilatus markets it as the “Super Versatile Jet”: according to the manufacturer, it can also take off from short and unpaved runways of grass, gravel or snow.

Externally, the PC-24 is a low-wing aircraft with two Williams engines at the sides of the tail and a T-tail. That alone would not be a unique feature, since many small jets share this layout. What decides it is again the cargo door at the rear left, which you hardly find on other jets of this class as factory equipment. Up to ten passengers fit in the cabin, often fewer depending on the outfitting.

In the business aviation areas of major airports, the PC-24 stands next to much larger jets like the Dassault Falcon 8X, the Gulfstream G650 or the Bombardier Global 7500. How best to catch such aprons is in the article Spotting business jets.

The trainers: PC-7, PC-9 and PC-21

A large part of the business lies with air forces. Pilatus sells not just aircraft but entire training systems with simulators and instruction. The three generations of turboprop trainers look similar at first glance, but are easy to tell apart.

The PC-7 is the classic. Student and instructor sit one behind the other under a fairly flat, continuous canopy. The Swiss Air Force shows it with its aerobatic team, the PC-7 Team, at air shows. Since 2021, Pilatus has offered a modernized version as the PC-7 MKX; the Netherlands and France have already chosen it.

The PC-9 is the more powerful further development. Its most striking feature is the stepped cockpit: the rear seat sits higher so the instructor can see over the student. There is also a four-blade propeller. A derivative of the PC-9 won the big US JPATS trainer competition in 1995 and flies there as the T-6 Texan II.

The PC-21 is the current top trainer. A powerful PT6 engine drives a five-blade propeller, the cockpit is stepped, and the shape looks more angular and jet-like than its predecessors. It trains pilots up to the threshold of the fighter jet. Operators include Switzerland, Australia, France, Spain, Singapore, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

PC-6 Porter – the legend in retirement

The PC-6 Porter is the aircraft many people associate with Pilatus. Since its first flight on May 4, 1959, it has landed on glaciers, in the jungle and on strips barely longer than a football field. Pilatus closed the order book in 2018, and standard reference works give about 600 examples built. But many Porters are still on the move, for example as jump aircraft for skydivers, in mountain flying or with government agencies.

It is easy to identify: a strut-braced high wing, a fixed landing gear with a tailwheel at the rear and a strikingly long, slim nose, in which most aircraft carry a PT6 turboprop. At large commercial airports the Porter is a rare guest, but at smaller fields with skydiving operations it is easy to find. You’ll find more ideas for such rarities in the article Spotting rare aircraft.

Four steps to the right Pilatus

With small aircraft especially, there is often little time. This sequence takes you quickly from a rough classification to the specific type.

One note on photography: propellers only look alive in photos when they are slightly blurred. With too short an exposure time, you freeze the blades, and the aircraft looks as if it were gliding. You’ll find suitable values in the article Photographing propellers: the right shutter speed.

The manufacturer is identifiable, the operator is not

Pilatus is a technical fact, the operator an operational one. Many PC-12s and PC-24s run through charter companies or programs in which several owners share an aircraft. The registration remains the only constant. Many aircraft in Europe carry a Swiss HB- registration, but a large part of the fleet flies in North America with N registrations. Which prefixes belong to which country is in the article on country prefixes.

Where to see Pilatus aircraft

There are practically no scheduled flights with Pilatus aircraft in German-speaking countries. So plan with tracking instead of a timetable and go for airports with plenty of business traffic. At Zurich Airport, Observation Deck B (Zuschauerterrasse B) and Butzenbüel are worthwhile when small turboprops and jets arrive and depart. At Geneva Airport, business aviation is traditionally strong, and the observation deck is a good starting point.

Around the plant in Stans, the chance of factory-new aircraft is naturally greatest. Buochs airfield (ICAO LSZC), with its runway of about 2,000 meters, serves as the factory airfield for test and delivery flights. There is no official spotting location there, and the plant and airfield grounds are not public. Stay on public paths and respect barriers.

If you are interested in the big manufacturers, you’ll find the airliners at Airbus and Boeing, and the Falcon business jets, neighbors of the PC-24 on the apron, at Dassault Aviation. If you want to see historic aircraft after spotting, the Flugwerft Schleißheim in southern Germany is a rewarding destination.

Conclusion

Pilatus is a manufacturer you rarely see in large numbers but in many places. The PC-12 and PC-24 shape the small aprons of business aviation, the PC-7, PC-9 and PC-21 trainers shape the training of numerous air forces, and the PC-6 Porter has long been a legend. What all types share is that they are designed for ruggedness and versatility – and that each brings a clear identifying feature.

For you at the fence, a short routine is therefore enough: propulsion, wing and landing gear, then cabin or canopy and finally the registration. If you master that, you identify every Pilatus reliably – whether factory-new over Buochs or as a guest in the business aviation area of Zurich.