Pilatus Aircraft

Pilatus Aircraft is the Swiss aerospace manufacturer based at Stans in the canton of Nidwalden, with its headquarters and production plant on Buochs Airport. The firm was founded as Pilatus Flugzeugwerke AG on 16 December 1939 and spent its early years maintaining and repairing aircraft for the Swiss Air Force before building its own trainers. It has concentrated on niche markets, above all short take-off and landing utility aircraft such as the PC-6 Porter, military trainers from the P-3 and PC-7 through the PC-9 to the turboprop PC-21, the single-engine turboprop PC-12 and, in the 2010s, the twin-engine PC-24 jet. Its aircraft carry the Pilatus name as the make of each model. Ownership passed from the Oerlikon-Bührle group, later Unaxis, to a consortium of Swiss investors in December 2000. The group also has operations in Adelaide and in Broomfield, Colorado.