Swiss Air Force PC-21 Solo Display

The Swiss Air Force PC-21 Solo Display is the newest official display element of the Swiss Air Force. It was presented to the public on 5 July 2025 during the aerodrome festivities at Neuchâtel/Colombier and is intended to showcase Switzerland's modern PC-21-based pilot training system now that the F/A-18 Hornet solo display has been paused.

Instead of pure noise and vertical power like the Hornet, the PC-21 act leans into precision, energy management and versatility. A typical routine lasts about eight minutes and links together jet-like high-speed passes (the PC-21 can reach about 370 KTAS / 685 km/h), tight looping figures, 4–5 g turns, half-Cuban style figures and slow, high-alpha segments that prove how controllable the aircraft is at low speed — all while staying inside the Swiss Air Force's strict display envelopes. The demo is flown by an instructor-qualified pilot from Emmen, where the Swiss PC-21 fleet is based.

Before it became an official solo display, PC-21s had already appeared at Axalp 2021 and 2022 in display-style windows together with a PC-7 and an F/A-18. Those flights were effectively the public preview phase — your Axalp photos are from that era, when the aircraft was already doing display work but wasn't yet the formal PC-21 Solo Display.

Because it is a training-aircraft showcase and not a dedicated team like Patrouille Suisse, the PC-21 solo will not turn up at every single show. The air force said it will support a limited number of domestic events and selected foreign invitations to underline 'modern and future-oriented training of Swiss military pilots', not to run a high-tempo European tour.

The Pilatus PC-21 is Switzerland's own 21st-century turboprop trainer, built to let air forces do almost the entire fighter-pilot syllabus on a single, very fast trainer before sending pilots to a frontline type. It has a high-speed wing, HOTAS, HUDs in both cockpits, a mission computer, embedded simulation and full anti-g capability — essentially fighter features in a trainer that burns a fraction of the fuel.

A Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6A-68B (about 1,600 shp) driving a five-bladed Hartzell prop gives the PC-21 very un-turboprop performance: Pilatus quotes around 685 km/h (370 KTAS) top speed, more than 4,000 ft/min climb and +8 / −4 g structural limits — exactly why the Swiss Air Force is comfortable flying a full public aerobatic sequence on it.

In Swiss service the PC-21 replaced the former Hawk Mk.66 jet-training route. Parliament approved the first batch in 2006, the first aircraft arrived in 2008, and by 2012 the fleet was up to eight aircraft at Emmen, integrated into the Swiss military pilot training system. So the display is not about selling an export product — it is about showing Swiss taxpayers that the aircraft they bought to train pilots really can fly like a little jet in front of a crowd.