In early May I bought a 2010 Pilatus PC12/47E (NG), s/n 1178, with a Pratt PT6A-67P engine. It is equipped with an MT seven-blade prop and the American Aviation pitot cowl STC. Prior to the Pilatus, I owned a Cessna 425 Conquest for ten years and 3000 hours. For this Pirep, I’ll give a few comparisons to my Conquest since that is the turbine airplane with which I am most familiar.

To begin, I considered a new airplane for several years. (See my thread here: viewtopic.php?f=4&t=208400). At first, I thought I wanted a King Air C90GT since it seemed to fit my mission best. Then I was convinced by the Beechtalk brethren that I “might as well” go to a B200 since the overall cost of ownership was similar and the fuel system, range and pressurization was better. I always wanted a King Air, so with that in mind, I hired Chip McClure of Jet Acquisitions to find me a good B200. However, due to the width of my hangar door, I couldn’t buy a B200 with winglets – it just wouldn’t fit. And no, I couldn’t widen my door any more than it already was.

Over several months, Chip found a few B200’s that were off-market, however, they all had winglets. At the same time, I began considering a Pilatus rather than the B200. The more I investigated, the Pilatus seemed to fit my mission perfectly. Without going into detail about the PC12 versus the B200, I ultimately changed plans and asked Chip to switch to a PC12.

We quickly found a nice 2010 model and made a deal. Chip was extremely helpful and has continued to be a major asset in my first few months of Pilatus ownership.

All PC12’s from around 2008 to 2023 have the Honeywell Apex avionics system, as did mine. However, due to time constraints, I chose to do my initial training at Executive Flight Training in Austin because of the short drive from my house and the three-day course schedule. Unfortunately, their simulator had the old legacy avionics and not the Honeywell Apex system. In hindsight, training in a non-Apex simulator was a big mistake. I should have gone to SIMCOM in Florida for five days and used their simulator with the Apex system, as moving from Garmin avionics to Honeywell has been a major hill to climb.

As of August 23rd of this year, I’ve put a little over a hundred hours on the airplane and the guy who flies my employees when I’m not available has flown 50 hours. In that time, I can tell you I absolutely love the airplane – and when I say “the airplane” I don’t mean the avionics. The airplane is awesome. It does 260 to 270 knots and can carry a crap-load of stuff. There are no CG issues and it’s as solid as you could ask. What’s amazing is, compared to my Conquest, it’s bigger, faster, flies higher and burns less fuel. Where the Conquest was 250-260 knots on around 60 gph, the Pilatus cruises 260-270 knots and burns around 55 gph. The airplane is truly phenomenal. However, the avionics absolutely suck.

To begin, when preparing for my first flight with the airplane at my home base, the AGM2 card failed. An AGM card is a printed circuit board about the size of a standard iPad and is mounted vertically below the floor near the cabin door. From what I understand, this is the Achilles heel of the Apex system and a constant source of frustration. Fortunately, I transferred the Honeywell MSP program, aka the “extended warranty” of the avionics system from the previous owner, so the AGM card was covered by warranty. However, it still cost me $4200 in labor for Cutter Aviation to drive from San Antonio to my hangar and install an exchange card. The airplane was down for about a week. Then, a week later, the AGM1 card failed. This time, I flew it to San Antonio and saved a few hundred dollars in labor cost. The airplane was down for another week.

After these failures, I wanted to make sure I was enrolled in the Honeywell MSP program, otherwise known as the “Mafia Security Program”. The reason I call it the mafia program is because you pay for “protection” from Honeywell. If you are the unlucky owner of a Honeywell Apex system and an AGM card fails, the cost to replace it will be north of $100,000 - I think around $118,000. However, for the low-low price of $28,000 per year, you can get “protection” from this absurd cost. Local lore holds that the item failing on these AGM cards is a ten-cent diode that gets re-soldered onto the circuit board when you send in your old one.

But wait, there’s more. When I first signed up for the Honeywell MSP program, they quoted me not $28,000, the amount the previous owner paid, but $42,600! Per year! When I climbed down from the ceiling, I asked why the cost increased so much. The lovely Honeywell lady with whom I was speaking couldn’t give me an answer, so, over the next few weeks, I made several calls and got the help of Chip and the previous owner, who knew people high up at Honeywell.

Finally, after nearly a month, Honeywell offered me the same deal at $28,000, but the only way they would give me that price was if I signed a three-year contract with them. I can’t tell you how infuriated it made me with Honeywell. I assume the three-year contract was because word-on-the-street is Garmin is working on a retrofit STC to rip out the entire Apex system and install a G3000. I tell you this – I’ll be the first guy in line to buy the Garmin STC after dealing with Honeywell. They are absolutely terrible!

But not only does Honeywell as a company suck, the actual Apex system sucks just as badly. Sure, you hear Pilatus pilots tell you it’s a good system, but I’m telling you - it’s not. The Apex system has to be the most non-intuitive, complicated and clunky computer system invented by man. I’ve heard people say, “Oh, it’s like going from an Apple to an Android”. No, it’s not. It’s like going from an Apple to an old DOS computer system requiring you to learn programming code. I can’t imagine the Apollo 11 moon lander was more difficult to learn than this stupid Apex system. It’s freakin’ terrible. And knowing that I get to pay $28,000 per year to keep it just infuriates me that much more.

Plus, here are a few other things endearing me so much to the Apex system. To begin, it takes forever to boot-up. You have to turn on the Standby Battery, then go drink a cup of coffee while it decides whether it’s going to work for the day. It’s also glitchy. Like, weird stuff just comes and goes. For instance, occasionally the CAS message box gives me a CPCS (Cabin Pressurization System) fault. Then it goes away. WTF? And then occasionally I get a TAWS fault message that just goes away. One time, I got amber-colored X’s across both fuel quantity indicators. I taxied back, shut down, crawled up in the hell-hole, unplugged the batteries, waited five minutes, plugged them back in and – wallah, everything worked again. No, that wasn’t a pain-in-the-ass at all…? And when landing at Panama City, on final approach at 500’ agl, rather than announcing “500” through the audio system, the damn thing starts booming, “Terrain, terrain! Pull up, pull up!” WTF?!! It did that through the entire visual approach and landing. The only way to make it go away was to hold down the “Terrain Inhibit” button. The passenger in the right seat had to sit there with his finger on the button the entire time.

And about that “500” audio message it gives on landing… It’s so freakin’ loud, it scares the crap out of me every time I land. And guess what – there’s no way to turn the volume down on the damn thing! So when I’m landing, I just tense my shoulders and get ready to be yelled at: “500!!!”. Holy crap!

And finally, to update the avionics database, I have to set aside several hours of my day to do it. It might work on the first time, or it might work on the fourth time. Or it might not work on that day because the moon is in the wrong phase. It’s terrible.

I have so little confidence in the Apex system, I mounted a Garmin Aera 660 handheld GPS to the left-side glareshield. How stupid is that? Ugh, it’s so frustrating.

One thing I will say about the Apex system – the autopilot is damn good. It’s very precise and flies the airplane very smoothly. I have no complaints about the autopilot, other than in turbulence it occasionally kicks off and hands me the airplane. It’s not bad, I’m just not used to that.

What else can I say about the airplane? Yes, the PC12 is everything you can imagine. The ride in the back seat is sublime. It’s quiet compared to anything else I’ve owned. It has the same sound in the back as an airliner only maybe slightly louder, but not by much. And when riding in the back, the flap motor and the gear sound just like an airliner. I say this because I believe it makes passengers feel more comfortable – almost familiar.

Control harmony while hand-flying is just fine - a little lighter in the ailerons than my Conquest but in a good way. It does require a lot of trimming, but that’s no big deal. The seven-blade prop on my airplane is quiet, but I don’t know if it really adds any performance over a five-blade. They say the climb rate is better, but I don’t know if that’s true. I’d venture to guess the climb rate is marginally better than a five-blade prop, but I bet it’s one or two knots slower in cruise.

I love the slow approach speeds – around 90 knots on final slowing to the low 80’s across the numbers. It’s just crazy the thing flies so slow. And the baggage door – holy cow that thing is convenient. The lavatory is perfect, but it can be a little tight moving out of the way of the doors when they swing into position.

As for maintenance, I haven’t had any issues in the short time I’ve owned the airplane, but I do have a couple of squawks I’m saving for the annual inspection – nothing major.

There’s just not much else to say about the PC12. The airplane is great and the avionics suck. It is what it is. I can see why these things are as expensive as they are and why they hold their value. There’s just no other airplane that will do what the Pilatus does for the money. Yet.

The Honeywell program sounds a lot like a similar Collins program ("CASP"). They have absurd prices on buying any individual component to get you to have an annual subscription. Then they repair and not overhaul anything you send them. So you have to do it again fairly soon due to some other component of the box failing. Infuriating.

I can't wait to yank out the last of my Collins equipment when Garmin get RVSM certified for the Piaggio.

“I have no complaints about the autopilot, other than in turbulence it occasionally kicks off and hands me the airplane.“

I used to fly SN 641, and its autopilot would do the same thing. Both before and after it was refitted with two G600s and a 750 and 650. Must be a PC-12 thing. Oh, and they also put a five bladed prop on, and we gain about ten knots in cruise. That was nice.

Personally I would have a problem with a AP that disconnects when it gets bumpy, especially in clouds and at night.

Way too many PC-12 crashes that the AP handed the plane to an unaware and or unprepared pilot.

Actually can’t think of many things worse than the AP disconnecting in turbulence.

If I had a PC-12 I would be doing all I could to get the new Garmin AP.

Mike

The KFC whatever autopilot the legacy PC-12 had would kick off in turbulence as well. Annoying.

I never had any issues with learning the Apex system, but I was a lot younger and smarter then, I may not have as easy of a time now. It always seemed like overkill for the airplane, especially when doing 8 short legs in a day.

I have about 2500 hours in the PC-12, I’d love a part time job flying one again.

Bummer a good airplane is saddled with that system.

I have a friend who bought a NGX new. No better. Many problems with the avionics where you are just stuck. Most were fixed under warranty at first but seeing the bills come in you can figure it is time to move it along. The replacement parts do not seem to be any more reliable.

They have a Garmin equipped PRO on order.

Does anyone have approximate cost to upgrade to Garmin for a similar 2010 vintage NG
What Garmin options are there? Is it a G1000 or something different?

There are no options available to replace the avionics on an Apex equipped Pilatus, including the autopilot. Rumor has it Garmin is working on a replacement suite whereby an owner could rip out all the Honeywell stuff and replace the entire system, similar to what is available for a Collins Pro Line equipped King Air. However, I asked two guys at the Garmin tent at Oshkosh but they knew nothing about it.

Pics or none of this has happened

John,

Welcome to the Pilatus family. I understand your frustrations with Honeywell (and I think Pilatus did too). I owned and flew MSN 1318 for 1800 hours and 7 years, here are a few ownership tips for what it’s worth.

- attend at least one Flight Safety recurrent session (Dallas and Denver sim locations) and their UPRT, which is done in a PC-12 NG sim. Get a big discount by joining POPA.
- attend annual POPA conference
- in aircraft training by Shepherd Aero/Rod Kellog.
- most PC-12 flights will have relatively light wing loading so it really helps the ride quality to slow to 170 IAS.
- on climb, set 6 degrees pitch up to perfectly match the Pilatus book climb schedule
- set your range inner range ring on your altitude above ground; then every airport in your outer ring, you can glide to. For example, you are at FL200 or 20K above the ground, set the inner ring to 20 miles, the outer ring is double (40 miles)
- set the ACS bleed air to “off” when departing short and hot, turn back on when cleaning up the plane.
- while the Apex is slow to boot, change your flows to reduce/eliminate wait time, one is to turn on standby bus, preflight, apex will be ready when you return. Also while on standby, and after obtaining your clearance, you can load your squawk code by pressing the XPND button, typing your code, and pressing enter. The catch here is you will not get numerical feedback in the transponder window as you are typing or after you hit enter, but after your power on your battery buses, you’ll see the squawk code. It will also hold the code if you power down your standby bus.
- database updates, don’t rush anything, wait for boot to complete before loading, and give it a few minutes before and after each database to load. Close out of all other apps before opening the IDM app. All will increase success rate. Better yet, let your pilot deal with it or hire a tech pilot kid to handle it. I’m not defending Honeywell at all, the whole process does stink.
- schedule annuals at least 3 months out, cutter stays very busy, I did hear they could be going to an overnight shift at Addison.

Honeywell path based synthetic vision is superior in my opinion (probably not originally equipped for your plane but can be upgraded), I was glad to see Pilatus keep this with the Garmin equipped PC-12 Pro. Also, APEX autopilot disconnects are not the norm, ours would seldom disconnect aside from extreme moderate turbulence. You might get some value out of your Honeywell agreement and have it checked out.

Even the mighty G1000 and G3000 can kick off if the turbulence gets bad enough. Not sure it’s related to G-Force, but what will happen is if the turbulence is bad enough, your AHRS will get wonky and start mis-comparing.

At least in my plane when the AHRS miscompare it alarms and disconnects the auto pilot because it doesn’t know which AHRS to follow. Sometimes you just need to disconnect the auto pilot in turbulence because it gets into a situation where it’s trying so hard to maintain its parameters that is going the opposite what you should be doing to maintain control and it can really overstress the airframe. Prob only had a couple of times George handed it to me, many more times I put George in the closet to protect the airframe. The worst probably descending into Durango one day, IMC and didn’t pay attention to how close I was to mountain peak height, and hit a series of rotors. My pax said my 105 lb lab sleeping on the floor hit the ceiling and landed on all fours. Then the pax put their legs over the dog to keep him from hitting the ceiling again, as we hit 2 more rotors. Closest I have come to breaking a plane. Was a Mirage. Chopped power, dropped gear, popped speed brakes and rode it out.

But back to the PC 12. That was my impression as well. Awesome plane flies just like a less nimble version of my M600. Same v-speeds, same forgiving, big wing feel, same performance, same landing attitude. The avionics are just doggy, even with synthetic vision. Has so dang many buttons and switches for button and switch’s sake. Old school engineering. So much of that stuff could be automated, or run by the Garmin. Had it had Garmin back then, probably would have sold some of my kids to afford it. . But I’m the boss, the pilot, and the check writer, and I want a nice office space. . The new PC12 will be amazing. Too bad airplane price inflation has far outpaced my income inflation.

I've been flying a 2009 NG since 2016. I find the Apex to be simple to use and intuitive, and I haven't had these issues except the CPCS once or twice but cleared it by flipping to manual and back to auto. MSP program is indeed a scam and quite unfortunate. I suspect you'll get good with Apex soon and then start to appreciate some things about it.

Pictures below.

Well it looks awesome John! I hope you can find peace with the avionics and enjoy the machine, for it appears a dream come true.

Thanks Adam! When John immediately started having issues, I was really caught off guard, I just haven’t had many complaints.

I did call all of our clients we’ve bought NG’s for and it was mixed, some said exactly what you said, others had multiple problems. It does seem that the AGM cards are a common fail point.

The system does have some strong points, and most say that those at least take some of the sting away.

Garmin is very tight-lipped about development, but it’s pretty easy to use deductive reason to figure out what is coming next.

Long before anyone at Garmin or Textron would admit it, I knew the Garmin panel was headed to the CJ4, all of the other jets are Garmin, it would be non-sensical to keep it in the CJ4. A couple of years ago, I was at the factory and saw a CJ4 with a boom on it and knew it was coming soon.

By the same logic, with Garmin being installed in the Pro now, the hard work is done. So, you’ll see a G3000 upgrade available, probably in late 2028.

Many in the Pilatus world tell me I’m wrong, but I will bet a steak dinner that the PC24 is right behind the Pro and will be delivered with a Garmin panel as soon as 2027.

Ugh. What you really want is a straight part 23 STC for GTN750Xi+G600Txi (w/EIS) +GFC600 suite. Then you get rid of the ridiculous legal entanglement with the manufacturer certification that makes it continually hard to add or change avionics. Doubt that it would be hard to accomplish if all the pieces are there - the engine gauge/EIS components are there, the autopilot certification might be the big missing piece, albeit still smaller than a whole G3000. Maybe some big Pilatus shop could get it done even before 2028.