PILATUS AIRCRAFT LTD PC-12/47E

The PC-12 is a single-engine turboprop that carries up to nine passengers in a pressurised cabin at 280 knots, and it has a large cargo door on the left rear that lets it swallow freight, stretchers or skis. It sits in a category almost of its own: it does most of what a light twin turboprop does, on half the fuel and with one engine to maintain, and it will operate from short unpaved strips. Air ambulance operators, fractional programmes, corporations and wealthy owner-pilots all use them. The /47E designation is the NG of 2008 and everything since, which is a different aeroplane from the earlier /45 and /47: it has the Honeywell Apex glass flight deck and the more powerful PT6A-67P. Within the /47E run, the 2016 model year brought a five-blade composite propeller, aerodynamic clean-ups and about five knots more cruise, and the NGX of 2020 a FADEC-controlled PT6E-67XP with an autothrottle and a larger-window cabin. A 2010 NG, a 2017 NG and a 2021 NGX are all PC-12/47Es and each is a step up from the last.

The things a buyer needs to weigh are the single engine and the cost base. The PT6A is among the most reliable engines ever built and the safety record supports flying one over water and at night, but it is still one engine, and some passengers and some corporate flight departments will not accept that. Operating costs are turbine costs: hot-section inspections, an eventual overhaul running into six figures, and Jet-A at 60-70 gallons an hour. It requires a high-altitude endorsement and, though no type rating is needed below 12,500 lb, insurers demand formal initial and annual recurrent simulator training and often a minimum experience level or a mentor pilot for the first hundred hours. The NG version (47E) has the Honeywell Apex flight deck and a higher cruise than earlier PC-12s.