1st PC-12 PRO Delivery - From Switzerland to Australia

When Pilatus test pilot Patrick Willcock took off in a PC-12 from the runway in Stans in September, it wasn’t just another delivery flight. It was a seven-day journey across continents, oceans, and time zones to Adelaide, Australia, aboard the first customer-accepted, brand-new PC-12 PRO. Sitting beside Patrick was the aircraft’s new owner, long-time PC-12 pilot Dion Weisler. Together, they flew a route around the globe that demonstrated the immense effort of the Pilatus team that made it possible.

After two and a half years of test flights, the ferry journey offered something no test program could: a real-world operational test of everything the team had built. “You can’t truly test a system until you fly it operationally,” Patrick says. “This was the chance to see how all our design decisions held up as we flew across the world.” 

Over 41 hours in the air, spread across seven days, the crew crossed Europe, the Middle East, and Asia before flying south to Australia. Stops in Crete, Egypt, Oman, India, Malaysia, and Indonesia turned the route into a study in contrasts – weather challenges, airspace restrictions, and local regulatory quirks made it a genuine test of the aircraft and its systems. “We dodged thunderstorms over India, navigated monsoons, and flew a scenic route around Uluru at sunset. It was an unforgettable trip,” Patrick recalls. “Dion was such an amazing person to do the flight with – he really wanted to know all the details of how and why it all works, so you could really get into the details with someone who was keen to soak up all the knowledge he possibly could about the aircraft.”

The final leg ended in Adelaide, where the aircraft and crew were welcomed with a water-cannon salute from local fire crews – a fitting celebration of a journey across some of the world’s most demanding conditions. 

From Concept to Cockpit 
Long before the ferry flight, Patrick had been closely involved in the development of the PC-12 PRO, helping shape everything from cockpit design to flight systems. When he took over as lead test pilot, the program was still in its early stages. “We had no autopilot or yaw damper on the maiden flight, and a very basic software version,” he remembers. “It’s been an interesting and challenging journey. We’ve had about twenty different software versions over the past two and a half years. Now we had finally reached a point where we could deliver a finished product.”

Behind every hour of flight testing in the sky were at least ten hours on the ground. Patrick was part of the engineering team that refined everything, including, for example, the size of the vertical speed indicator and the color of every single symbol on the screen. “The decisions made early on can’t be changed later, so it’s a huge responsibility,” he says. His work at the intersection of flight testing and engineering meant every cockpit adjustment was tested not only in theory but also under the real demands of a pilot’s workload. 

The transition from Honeywell Apex to Garmin G3000 brought together two different design philosophies, each with its own logic and priorities. “Garmin does things a certain way, and we had to push back in some cases, to make the product Pilatus class,” Patrick says. “Garmin is a great partner – open to discussion and willing to make changes where necessary.” This collaboration ensured the PC-12 PRO’s cockpit is intuitive for both Garmin-experienced pilots and those transitioning from Honeywell systems. 

For Patrick, that mindset – a mix of curiosity, precision, and humility – mirrors the aircraft itself. And as the first PC-12 PRO continues to carve flight paths across the skies of Australia, it carries with it a quiet story of persistence and partnership – of a test pilot who, alongside a dedicated team, helped turn thousands of engineering decisions into one exciting, long journey home.