Pilatus PC-24 | The Super Versatile Jet

hello aviators sky here and we are returning to glorious business jets our time is often called rather boring people say everything that can be invented has already been invented and manufacturers are simply making optimal products with optimal demand in the market and that's not a lie aviation is a huge complex and expensive industry the cost of error is high and no one is in a hurry to take risks on the other hand the creation of an optimal aircraft to the market is not as simple as it sounds what if the market wants a product that does not fit into the traditional framework what if the wishes of customers contradicts the capabilities of technology it is necessary to strike a balance between opportunities and the price that you will have to pay for them we're about to meet an example of such a big game of balance the Lada specie 24 is a light jet aircraft which only one hand is one of the members of classic business aviation and on the other hand creates its own leash let's get acquainted with the representative of a rare breed of versatile business jets it all starts of course with another plane the history of this aircraft begins in the 2000s when Swiss aviators were thinking about the legacy of their main brainchild the pc-12 turboprop this plane is amazing pilots love it because it is easy to fly operators love it because it is undemanding and quite cheap to operate passengers love it because with those simplicity it is very comfortable plus it has many unique features a large cargo door variety of configurations low demands to the airfield infrastructure the balanced form Dwight's creators gave outstanding results the pc-12 turned the entire market inside-out conquering a significant part of it by 2019 the Swiss delivered more than 1,600 aircraft of this model the success of the pc-12 turned coladas into a major global aircraft manufacturer naturally having gained decent authority in the industry and what is also important resources the Swiss decided to move on the question immediately arose where will they move this question was asked to the market itself the company conducted extensive marketing research interviewing customers the results of these studies were in principle to be expected but still somewhat puzzling the pc-12 gave rise to a trend everyone wanted a simple economical and versatile aircraft that could meet the requirements of a very wide range of customers naturally such different clients wanted an aircraft just as Universal and efficient but even better the pc-12 ng has many advantages and among its disadvantages were maybe the cruising speed of approximately 530 kilometers per hour and the flight altitude of a little over 9 kilometers or 30,000 feet here customers wanted to expand their capabilities at speed and altitude and some extra range wouldn't hurt meanwhile all the bonuses of the 12th had to be preserved it was immediately clear that it had to be a jet aircraft no way a turboprop could handle the new requirements but the problem was that the old engine was the source of many advantages the use of a jet power plant would solve some problems giving rise to others the creation of a classic business jet was not an option at all clients didn't need it and the market was already full at least such pretty guys as the Cessna Citation cj4 and embraer phenom 300 would be very difficult to compete with well a high-speed business jet with advantages of a slow turboprop is an incredibly difficult task difficult but interesting to others began to solve this problem in 2007 starting the work to create such an aircraft giving the complexity and high risks they did not announce it working in secret nevertheless behind the veil of secrecy work was carried out very actively from the abyss of research concepts and disputes the future of PC 24 was born probably the main challenge was the airframe at first glass everything is simple they could apply the usual scheme of a light business jet but the difficulty was that the plane needed not only to reach the maximum speed but also to maintain the minimum versatility implies first of all the ability to work with a large number of airfields even the grass runways and the speech to high would not allow this in addition other pallidus features have their own requirements although site doors cargo compartments and large cabins did not simplify the task the familiar design would not work and the engineers had to seriously remaster it getting acquainted with the aircraft will be easy and clear for us today since we have it right here let's start with the fuselage since the pc 24 concept is a continuation of the pc-12 the overall layout inside did not change much the cockpit the door and lavatory behind it then the cabin and in the rear the cargo compartment nevertheless higher requirements for both comfort and flight capabilities led to an increase in size the total length of the aircraft reached sixteen point eight meters 2.4 meters or 8 feet more than the pc-12 the tail unit has a classic design except that to maintain control at low speeds it was made quite large the keel brings the aircraft height to 5.3 meters and a stabilizer span is six point eight meters plus another small stabilizer is installed under the fuselage while the tail is quite common for such type of aircraft the wing had to be conjured much more seriously because it had to keep the lattice in a wide range of speeds the wingspan is 17 meters which is very close to his classmates however the usual swept-wing could not give the required minimum speed and the usual straight one on the contrary did not allow acceleration as a result it was made trapezoid the high aerodynamic quality of the newest wing as well as the addition of small tips did the job coupled with the new jet engines the aircraft can safely fly at a crew speed of 815 kilometers per hour at altitudes of up to 13 thousand seven hundred and sixteen meters here it is far superior to its turboprop brother and is already at the level of other business jets the speed is slightly lower and the heights well FL 450 is the same for everyone however the requirements for piloting and the ability to fly on a low speed remained this problem was solved in two ways first the wing received a small leading-edge extension both increasing its area and greatly improving its capabilities at low speeds when the aircraft raising its nose increases the angle of attack it creates additional lifting force this design is not new of course but its use had a great impact on the aircraft performance the second solution is mechanization the wing received large retractable flaps with additional sections closer to the fuselage pretty complex for a light jet plus a set of spoilers four on each side makes it easier to slow down something is missing slats additional mechanisms requiring maintenance increasing weight and taking up valuable space inside the wing on the light aircraft are hard to justify so business jets often don't have them even the large ones in any case the existing set was enough the pc 24 mechanization for a lightweight business jet is very complex and the task of keeping the minimum flight speed was complete the aircraft landing speed is 178 km/h 96 knots for a jet aircraft with a maximum landing mass of seven point 66 tons a ridiculously small figure a hundred and 50 km/h an ordinary car can catch up with it flying in low altitude when looking at the plane its central wing box immediately catches the eye for small business jets this is quite normal unlike the large airplanes in which the wing consoles are manufactured separately and mounted on the fuselage during the assembly process for these airplanes the wing is assembled as a one large structure and then installed on the plane plus there isn't much space inside the fuselage so engineers try to bring the equipment outside primarily the fuel system close oh this beauty with a fairing and voila the plane has a belly like a pregnant fish the fuel system of the aircraft is quite familiar for light business jets the PC 24 is equipped with two wing fuel tanks with 1685 litres 445 gallons each refueling is carried out through a single unit located in the center wing box if normal refueling equipment is not available there are tank hatches installed on the wing through which fuel can be filled in the old-fashioned way the landing gear has a classic three-legged layout but of course taking into account operating conditions it could not do without nuances the main landing gear is reinforced each bogie has two wheels at once with tires of slightly reduced pressure as well as powerful brakes the front leg is one wheel and the tire has unusual rubber growth on the sides acting as a kind of mud flaps that divert water dust and foreign objects to the sides plus if you plan to work continuously with unprepared runways the front gear can optionally be equipped with a protective shield in flight the front leg is moving inside the fuselage while the main gear is not completely hidden such a solution is often used to lower the weight and simplify the mechanism wheels under the belly can be seen for example on the Boeing 737 or only Embraer e-jet all these solutions make the landing gear more complex and heavy but the engineers completed the task the pc 24 works great with short runways and in the task of flying from grass airfields it is generally the only one in this class such capabilities give access to a huge number of air harbors from large airports to simple airfields which means plus thousands of sites around the world the official announcement of the pc 24 project was held at the 2013 Geneva business aviation exhibition to Ladas management immediately stated that the aircraft being the heir to the pc-12 would incorporate its best solutions adding new features of the jet aircraft like the turboprop the PC 24 was to occupy a special market light versatile business yes its own niche in which other aircraft are simply not present given that this concept was perfectly implemented on the pc-12 this rightly decided that it would be no less promising on the PC 24 in the phrase super versatile jet over time was transferred from fresh releases to aircraft fuselages the facts were also on their site went in 2014 they opened up the possibility of pre-ordering the first batch of 84 aircraft was fully contracted in 36 hours at the same time over the next few years the orders were limited by the company itself the PC 24 is a completely new aircraft and certainly not without childish problems the company first wanted to work with starting customers and if necessary make some adjustments finally we get to the powerplant it was also a serious challenge the Pratt Whitney pt6 mounted on the pc-12 is an excellent engine simple reliable economical replacing it with jet engines preserving the reliability and economy indicators was very difficult then the guys from Williams International got involved they proposed a powerplant made up of a pair of their best turbo fans fj40 4 is already a family of well-developed engines that raise into the sky a lot of light jet aircraft gelatos receives to the FG 44 - full version the newest the largest yes this is the largest version and the most powerful in normal mode they give up to 15 point 2 kilonewtons of thrust and if necessary automation can accelerate them to 16 kilonewtons given the size and weight of the aircraft this is enough I flew on it twice and both times two plane took off very quickly the engines are not equipped with reverse thrust this is also a usual solution for small business jets the fact is that the engines themselves are quite small and light and installing reverses would make the design a lot more complicated and heavy it was estimated that a combination of minimum landing speed spoilers and will brakes would be sufficient so what else was not applied on this plane there is no auxiliary power unit on the PC 24 an APU almost mandatory for larger aircraft on this little guy given the size and weight would be clearly excessive but we still need our own power source the plane may be created near the cozy Buicks airfield but it is intended for much less comfortable places where there may not be any external support the quiet power mode or qpm enters the scene in the world of light business jets AP use are replaced simply they start one of the engines bring in to the minimum idle modes and keep it that way using it as a generator there is such a feature on coladas but with in addition the pilot starts the right engine at minimum power in normal mode after that he turns on the QP M and the engine switches to a mode below the minimum so to speak with a decreased rotation speed and fuel consumption and a couple of QP M bonuses which may be even more important than fuel economy the first is that in this mode not only fuel consumption but also the load on the engine is reduced so using this feature does not wear out the power plant and the second much more important for passengers according to safety regulations a pilot can start the engine only after the aircraft is loaded the people onboard doors are closed and a traffic controller gave permission when you have an APU the energy is supplied without the engine start but if there is no APU go into the cold or conversely hot cabin and wait until you are allowed to start and only then the air conditioning system brings the cabin to a decent level of comfort the new technology on coladas allows to use the engine as a full-fledged APU it starts depending only on the mood of the pilot and passengers entering the plane will find themselves in exactly the comfort they paid for oh yes since it is the quiet power mode the engine in this mode really does work a little quieter [Music] avionics are also not easy the Honeywell Primus apex installed on the pc-12 is a fairly simple office which is very comfortable to work with and this is a great way to win over the pilots the task of the engineers was to create new avionics more complex adapted to a jet plane but at the same time equally convenient the choice of the supplier was obvious as a core of the future aerobatic complex honeywell proposed the new generation primus epoch to a toy for big boys epic - is in the core of the carpets of much larger and more expensive aircraft including the new Gulfstream models and the second-generation Embraer e-jet airliners on the basis of epic to the advanced cockpit environment complex or ace was created for the PC 24 despite the fact that fill autos while optimizing the piloting and costs tried to simplify everything it is still fully packed ace includes four 12 inch displays control automation graphical flight planning many security systems synthetic vision with the creation of three-dimensional maps of the area the new yokes can immediately catch the eye they are convenient and functional but their design is unusual as if the engineers were inspired by either Gundams or transformers Optimus Prime approves nevertheless despite all the complications and innovations the cockpit promises the same level of comfort in piloting and many solutions and elements have migrated here from the pc-12 with minimum change it should not be difficult to master new equipment the mandatory attribute of coladas of course has been preserved Automation allows the piling of the airplane by one pilot this is already considered common practice we interrupt the tour to go into the distant past on August 1st 1291 the three alpine Canton's of Switzerland unter Walden took a sacred oath of eternal alliance in fact establishing the Swiss Confederation 723 years later in 20 14 on the same holiday coladas held the ceremony of rolling out the first pc 24 prototype a cycle of testing and certification had begun the first flight was performed in May 2015 the prototype po1 took off from the buicks Factory airfield and spent 55 minutes in the air a bit later two more aircrafts joined the party after some time the po2 was sent to the United States and during the transatlantic flight it turned out that in the standard economy cruise flight its speed is higher than was planned also the tests made it possible to evaluate the real indicators of the flight range with six passengers it is three thousand three hundred and thirty four kilometers and with for three thousand seven hundred and four kilometers the tests on short and grass runways also showed excellent results Devadas needs 893 meters to take off with a maximum mass and 724 meters is enough for landing in December 2017 certification of the aircraft was completed by receiving documents from the EAS a and FAA by the time three prototypes flew over 2200 hours well finally it's time to see the part of the aircraft that everyone's been waiting for the cabin I'll start with the legacy of the turboprop in the jet model despite the fact that the general concept is similar these cabins are not the same the pc 24 has a circular fuselage and is larger than the pc-12 the natural result of this is a larger interior space it is 17 centimeters wider and 8 centimeters higher among its closest relatives the light business jets the 24 can feel quite confident in terms of size it finds itself somewhere in the middle between light and medium business jets before we go further we need to get acquainted with the main feature of coladas the cargo door it is along with the off-road performance the main advantage of these machines other aircraft in the class even the larger ones do not offer such things the pc 24 is equipped with the door 1 thirty centimeters high and a hundred and 25 centimeters wide with such dimensions it may seem that working with it will be difficult but despite the similarity to the cargo door of the pc-12 they also have many differences the different design of the aircraft the requirements of comfort and the placement of engines in the tail requires to change the layout now this door does not lead directly into the cabin but to the space behind it space up to two and a half cubic meters more than twice the size of a conventional pc-12 trunk this solution of course also has a price the engines were shifted more into the back the door has a rather complex design and it is slightly smaller and the plane itself had significantly grown in size again the PC 24 is 2.4 meters longer than the 12th the increase in the length of the aircraft also increased the lengths of the cabin although I will note that even though the luggage section had grown we can not put any seats in there given the performance of the aircraft and the volume of the cabin a special task was to create the right climate this work was undertaken by a new air conditioning system located in the tail when flying unto the ceiling the system maintains a pressure corresponding to an altitude of approximately 2.4 kilometers or 8,000 feet in the passenger compartment in a purely passenger configuration the plane can accommodate 10 people plus one to the pc-12 and since the plane can be controlled by one pilot one more passenger can seat in a cockpit as a result a maximum of 11 people meanwhile all the configuration options are preserved you can make an 11 seat air taxi you can make an empty all cargo compartment or you can install medical equipment and of course of the egg tea cabin usually it is six to eight seats in rows or in a clock pattern our plane has a cabin with six seats for looking at each other as a club plus two behind them each seat has a usual set of functions of its relatives from business aviation retractable arm rests on both sides a retractable food rest and reclining backrest indispensable attributes that allow you to relax in flight plus the seat itself is located on a dynamic mechanism that allows it to shift to the sides and rotate around its axis in principle this configuration can be called an improved version of the pc-12 layout finding all the buttons and levers will be quite simple for the people used to flying on the turboprop next to the seats inside the walls of the cabin there are large folding tables niches for personal items models and glasses several USB ports for charging as well as comfort controls comfort management has its own bonuses given that this after all is not an economy class the lattice engineers had to do something more than a pair of lights and fans the cabin was equipped with an electric control system with which you can both monitor the status of the flight and play with many elements of comfort and multimedia curiously it has done not through a special tablet or even an application the system is technically a website that can be accessed from any smartphone connected to the multimedia network of the aircraft yes it is isolated from avionics you can not hijack a plane with your iPhone oh we almost forgot the most important part of any play all those engines cabins and avionics are great of course but what about the bathroom on most business jets laboratories are located in the rear of the cabin behind all the main stuff but on the Pilatus this place is already occupied a viader solve this problem on the pc-12 so when creating their jet model they simply projected the old layout into the new cabin the toilet on the plane is located in the space between the passenger area and the cockpit just opposite from the stairs since this place is located almost in the centre of the plane in order to get secluded from friends and colleagues we will have to carry out a small procedure first we need to isolate ourselves from the cockpit it is usually separated by a curtain but now we need to open one of the doors and close the entrance to the cabin with it next turn around and close off the passenger compartment to do this press a couple of buttons on the walls and release the sliding doors since the doors do not completely cover the interior in order to get fully isolated we need to open another door below and bring it to the wall it will magnetize itself opening this door we retract the seat and voila we can begin the process of pondering the secrets of the universe colada sprite in this delicate matter their aircraft is the first in class to be equipped with a vacuum toilet with full external service check out the stone floor by the way thin marble tiles are installed on a hard surface I remember how in Top Gear they tried to improve comfort in a Mercedes in a similar way however then they had problems with ergonomics and controls of the car ended up not very good after completing this wonderful event we do the same procedure in Reverse I probably made it sound very long while in fact these manipulations can be done in ten seconds of course this is not an ordinary jet toilet space but it couldn't have been done any other way and yes another price of such a scheme there is no kitchen onboard so if you want to arrange a feast with hot dishes and drinks in the long flight you should keep this in mind at the end of 2018 deliveries began the first aircraft went to operators from Switzerland the United States and Australia moreover there was quite a lot of roles for them from the usual business jets to passenger versions and the Australians used all potential of their planes the local pilatus went to the Royal Flying Doctor fleet the ability to work on unprepared runways large doors and open spaces in the cabin where medical equipment can be placed made colada sees an ideal solution flying doctors have more than 30 pc-12 in their pod and now there are also the PC 24 that can quickly arrive to any place in the country as long as it has a simple airfield and this is just one example of let's say unusual use for a business jet in the spring of 2019 more than 30 aircraft were already in operation and having received first feedback from the operators who Ladas resumed accepting orders at the same time they are not in a hurry to accelerate production this allows to maintain high demand and the price as well all the aircraft that will be assembled in the next couple of years have already been solved and this is considering the fact that the aircraft is cheap at ten to eleven million dollars a price of the bonuses the PC 24 is more expensive than its classmates what can be set in conclusion the PC 24 cannot be called a classic business jet in terms of luxury and standards of maximum comfort it is a bit rougher on the edges competitors even claimed that it is not really a business jet in addition it is more expensive and heavy which shortens the flight range on the other hand well for classic business jets the VIP transportation is everything for the PC 24 it is only one of the rows it has features that simply cannot be compared with anything and they make it more versatile and practical if we take the car example then classic business jets are premium sedans such as the Panamera or the s-class the Pilatus is more of an SUV or a crossover something like a Cayenne or a Range Rover with the according pros and cons so the airplane is very interesting on the one hand very specific on the other very versatile at least the pc-12 fans will definitely appreciate it they wanted an improved version of the turboprop they got it the game of balance continues coladas made an unusual machine and only time will decide whether they want in this game or not and on this I think the story can be finished thanks for the support and advice to the guys from Swiss coladas aircraft the Russian history of aviation and the Royal Flying Doctor Service all Australia there cannot be too many interesting people around the world like and subscribe to the channel luxurious flights and soft landing Steve

Channel: Skyships Eng

Views: 565,190

Rating: 4.8662601 out of 5

Keywords: Pilatus, Pilatus PC-24, Pilatus PC-24 review, Pilatus PC-12, Versatile jet, Pilatus jet

Id: zx2bZiGizMo

Length: 28min 29sec (1709 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 12 2020