Pilatus PC-8D Twin Porter

The Pilatus PC- 8D Twin Porter was a twin-engined aircraft manufacturer Pilatus Aircraft, which, however, never reached the production stage.

History

The increasing demand for a twin-engined, more powerful working plane prompted the Pilatus Flugzeugwerke in 1965, to deal with the development of a twin-engined Porter version, the PC - 8D.

Development

In order to keep development costs low, as many components as possible were taken from the single-engine PC-6 Porter, such as the center fuselage, the wings and the main landing gear. A new development of the front fuselage, the tail with the tail and the arrangement of thrusters. The cabin was easily converted for different tasks.

First drafts showed a motor assembly right and left of the fuselage nose, similar to the Dornier Do 28, also a tandem arrangement of the engines above the fuselage as in the earlier Dornier Wal flying boats was considered. In the final version, the engines before the wings were located very close to the trunk and a separate engine mount. Between the engines and the wings, there was no firm connection, but a gap like a slat. With this arrangement it was hoped to obtain favorable values ​​for the single-engine.

Flight testing and adjustment of the project

Hans Galli led on 28 November 1967, the prototype of the PC - 8D with the registration HB -KOA the first flight. However, the results from beÕthe more than one year of flight testing is not satisfied, so you gave the project the end of January 1969. Please refer to poor single-engine performance was making the admission by FAR23 was not possible. The PC - 8D Twin Porter was presented also at the international airshow in Paris. The only built aircraft was scrapped after the project.

Specifications

PC-7

At the same time Pilate began with the development of the PC-7 trainer aircraft powered by a turboprop engine. This opened up the possibility to retrofit existing Pilatus Porter -engine piston and turboprop with the new build Pilatus Porter with minimal changes to the airframe. So that the desired high performance was achieved at lower operating and maintenance cost than the two-motor PC 8D. It has also been thinking about a PC-8 to build with Turboproptriebwerken, but remained only a project due to lack of market demand.