| | A fascinating book, not only for aviation enthusiasts but for all lovers of travel and of the sheer variety of the world we live, work and relax in. In 200 large-format pages and over 200 colour photos, the book illustrates the many uses to which the versatile Pilatus PC-12 is put all over the globe, through the many and varied people who fly it. The book also features full technical specifications of this extraordinarily successful general-aviation turboprop machine. Christian Müller shows, in ten lively reports, the various roles in which the Pilatus PC-12 is deployed around the world. The writer spent almost four months travelling through North and South America, South Africa and Australia, visiting various PC-12 operators and completing over fifty flights.
His reports include vivid accounts of the vital links provided by the PC-12 to remote areas, for the Flying Doctors in Australia’s Outback and the Red Cross in the South African bush. A further report describes the lifeline the PC-12 provides for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and its stations in Canada’s Far North.
Canada is also the venue for one of the PC-12’s scheduled airline deployments, in the service of Ontario-based Bearskin Airlines. Passenger flights of a different kind were provided in South Africa, where a PC-12 air taxi service ferries visitors to and from the fascinating Motswari game reserve.
Christian Müller also visited various private PC-12 owners: the successful London banker who pilots his own PC-12 up to his Scottish castle; the Tennessee executive who uses his PC-12 to fly his team of managers to their business meetings; the Argentinian businessman who commutes to and from his cattle-raising ranch; and the couple who use their PC-12 to discover the beauty of the American West and share the experience with their friends.
The book concludes with a fascinating account of a ferry flight of two PC-12s from Switzerland to their new American owners, an transatlantic odyssey via Scotland, Iceland, Greenland and Newfoundland. Here, too, as in all his accounts, Christian Müller captures both the PC-12’s excellent operating credentials and the strong affection shared by owners and operators alike for this outstandingly versatile machine.
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