Most private jets won't touch an unpaved runway, and for good reason: a stray stone or splash of mud getting sucked into a turbofan can mean a six-figure repair. The Pilatus PC-24 is the exception. The Swiss twinjet holds formal certification to operate from grass, wet soil, dry sand, gravel and snow-covered unpaved strips — a credential rivals would have to earn through years of testing, not a brochure claim.
The approval came in two stages. Pilatus cleared dry sand and gravel in 2018, then spent 2019 on a punishing test campaign before announcing full rough-field certification in February 2020. Regulators required proof on different surfaces, so the jet was flown to grass runways at Goodwood and Duxford in England, Kunovice in the Czech Republic and Poitiers in France. To simulate heavy rain, engineers flooded an English field with around 45,000 gallons of water; the PC-24 handled it. Crews in the Czech Republic rehearsed single-engine take-offs and systems failures in bad weather, while snow-covered gravel trials took place in Kuujjuaq, Canada. Engineers checked not just performance but whether stones reached the engines or snow packed into the flaps — nothing did.
The hardware behind it is deliberate design, not retrofit. The PC-24 uses long-stroke trailing-link landing gear that absorbs bumps, and its main tires run at low pressure (73-76.5 psi) so the 8,500 kg jet doesn't sink into soft ground. Its two Williams FJ44-4A engines sit high on the rear fuselage, away from debris, with the flaps offering extra shielding. Big double-slotted flaps also give it short-field performance: a take-off run of about 3,090 feet and a landing distance around 2,410 feet — while still cruising at 440 knots with a range near 2,000 nautical miles.
Pilatus says all this lets the PC-24 reach nearly twice as many airports as competing business jets. The buyers bear that out. Australia's Royal Flying Doctor Service relies on rough-field landings to reach patients in the outback, and in March 2026 Indonesia's Ministry of Defense ordered twelve of the jets, citing access to remote islands among a nation of 17,000. For private travellers, the appeal is similar: land closer to where you're actually going, skipping long drives or connecting flights from the nearest paved airport.
One caveat for anyone chartering one: certification means the aircraft is approved for unpaved surfaces, not that every field is a good idea. Crews still judge each strip on the day. But as a market signal, it's clear — 100 PC-24s were delivered by the end of 2020, and government buyers now list unpaved capability as a deciding factor. No competitor has yet repeated the multi-continent testing campaign needed to match it.
Simple Flying
