AOPA Turbine Pilot Magazine - August 2019 - T-24

feet I slowed the airplane and held the yoke back until the shaker
went off as the airspeed slowed into the red band. Lower the nose
a tad, add power, and you fly right out of shaker and begin building airspeed quickly. We put off the pusher demonstration until
there was a flight with no passengers. The push is aggressive, so
anything not strapped in is likely to go negative.
My approaches and landings were at Myrtle Beach, South
Carolina's International Airport and Manning, South Carolina's
Santee Cooper Regional Airport. The drill is to slow in stages
from 180 knots to 150 knots/flaps 8 degrees, then 135 knots/
flaps 15 degrees by the final approach fix (or rolling out on final
for VFR landings) when the gear are lowered and flaps go to
the full, 33-degree setting. I flew 110 or so knots down final,
then slowed to the VREF of 98 knots until bleeding that off just
above the runway. The wing is very slippery and the landing
attitude flat, so it took a few landings to get things wired. I got
a couple of wing rocks in the gusty conditions, but, believe me,
once the weight's on the mains and all those spoilers come up
it's an easy matter to stop the airplane in a very short distance.
At 3,600-foot-long Santee Cooper the landing distance was an
estimated 2,500 feet.
For all its size and weight, the PC-24 handles nimbly, and
with a little practice you can rack the ship around in VFR pattern work like a much smaller airplane. My guess is that after a
few hours most pilots with turbine time will easily master the airplane's flight and landing procedures. It's coming to terms with the
ACE avionics that will be a bigger challenge. PC-12 pilots stepping

up to the PC-24 will have a huge advantage here-because the
Honeywell Epic platforms are the same in both airplanes.
MARKET PERSPECTIVE

The PC-24 is a breakthrough airplane that offers big-jet features
such as autothrottles, single-point refueling, dual wheels, ground
spoilers, an APU function, a flat floor and wide cabin-and, yes,
an externally serviced vacuum-flush toilet in a hard enclosure.
Then there's the versatility to both cruise fast and use short, unimproved runways. That big aft door and flexible cabin configuration
doesn't hurt, either. All of this in an airplane that stays below the
magic, 20,000-pound maximum gross takeoff weight breakpoint, that separates "light" jets from the mid-size category. The
PC-24's competition has been identified as Embraer's Phenom
300, Textron/Cessna's Citation 4, and the King Air 350i, among
others-but none of them can carry big loads fast, let alone land
on dirt.
PC-24s were priced at $8.9 million, but many owners bought
options that pushed that number higher. At this year's European
Business Aviation Convention and Exhibit (EBACE) Pilatus
announced a price hike to $10.1 million. They also cracked open that
order book again and expected 60 more orders. That could be a conservative number. After all, the company anticipated the PC-12's
production run at 200 airplanes. Instead, PC-12 deliveries are now
up to 1,600, and counting. Next it could be the PC-24's turn. AOPA
EMAIL tom.horne@aopa.org
THE PC-24'S WINGS may have swept leading edges,

but its trailing edges are straight. This allows
forklifts or trucks easy, straight-in access to the
huge aft baggage compartment (left), which can
handle standard-sized pallets. The eight-seat
double-club interior configuration (below) is
popular, but seats can be removed in 10 minutes
to allow increased cargo capacity.

T-24 | AOPA PILOT August 2019

AOPA Turbine Pilot Magazine - August 2019

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