The Company was established in the early 1940s, the first design project was a single-seat trainer, designated P-1 but it was abandoned before being built. The next project was the SB-2 Pelican which was designed by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology but it never was built in series.
With production of the P-3 for the Swiss Air Force in progress the company achieved its first export order for six P-3s for the Brazilian Navy
Another project for the PC-10 16-passenger twin-engined transport was started but was not built.
The aircraft crashed and development was put on hold until the 1970s. In 1975 a further prototype was flown and after further development it was marketed as the PC-7 Turbo Trainer.
In 1982 development of an improved variant of the PC-7 was started, it emerged as the Pilatus PC-9 in 1984. Development of what was to become the companies best selling type the Pilatus PC-12 was started in 1987, a single-engined turboprop transport that could carry up to twelve passengers or freight. The prototype PC-12 was flown on 31 May 1991.
To further the family of military training aircraft the turboprop PC-21 was developed and first flown in 2002.
In December 2000, the owners Unaxis (previously called Oerlikon-Bührle) sold Pilatus to a consortium of Swiss investors. In July 2010 the company delivered its 1000 PC-12.
Even in the last years of crisis, Pilatus still confirmed the leadership on this nice market with the help of loyalty versus this Swiss company that delivered excellent products all over the world with many orders of their products like PC-7 MkII, PC-12 NG and PC-21.
Pilatus announced last years the development of their first Jet-engine aircraft that should be fly for the first time in 2013 or beginning of 2013, at the moment the official name should be PC-24.
- Pilatus SB-2 Pelican
- Pilatus P-1 - 1941 project for a single-seat trainer, not built.
- Pilatus P-2 - 1942
- Pilatus P-3 - 1953
- Pilatus P-4 - 1948
- Pilatus P-5 - proposed artillery observation aircraft, not built.
- Pilatus PC-6 Porter - 1959
- Pilatus PC-7 - 1966
- Pilatus PC-8D Twin Porter - 1967 twin-engined variant of the PC-6, prototype only
- Pilatus PC-9 - 1984
- Pilatus PC-10 - 1970 twin-engined transport project, not built.
- Pilatus PC-11/Pilatus B-4 - 1972
- Pilatus PC-12 - 1991
- Pilatus PC-21 - 2001
- Pilatus PC-24 - Proposed twin-engined jet