Manufacturer

Pilatus

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Pilatus Flugzeugwerke AG
Pilatus Aircraft Ltd

Formed as Pilatus Flugzeugwerke AG in 1939, as a subsidiary of the Oerlikon armaments company. First aircraft was SB-2 Pelican six-seat light transport of 1944, but prototype only built. Followed by P-2 advanced trainer, produced in quantity for the Swiss Air Force in late 1940s, and the P-3 advanced trainer from 1953. Series production of the P-3 followed for the Swiss Air Force, and six went to the Brazilian Navy. In May 1959 Pilatus flew the first PC-6 Porter STOL monoplane with a Lycoming piston engine; this type has been in continuous production ever since, later developments using Astazou, Garrett, and most recently Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6A turboprop engine as the PC-6/B2-H4 Turbo Porter. Pilatus also signed a license agreement for production of Turbo Porters by Fairchild-Hiller in U.S.A. Also undertook Mirage production and maintenance work for the Swiss Air Force.

Became known as Pilatus Aircraft Ltd, based at Stans, Switzerland,.the product range encompassing the PC-7 Turbo Trainer (first flown August 1978 in production form), PC-7 Mk II (M) Turbo Trainer (first flown September 1992), the PC-9 (M) Advanced Turbo Trainer (first flown May 1984) with the highest engine power of the range and also selected in 1995 for U.S. military service as the Raytheon/Beech T-6A Texan II, and the PC-12 utility and business turboprop transport (first flown May 1991 and also available in military form). Also, in 1979 Pilatus took control of the LJ.K.’s Britten-Norman Ltd company, becoming Pilatus Britten-Norman, but sold this company in July 1998.

Pilatus Aircraft Ltd., the Swiss aircraft manufacturer, has sold all manufacturing and marketing rights to the B 4 all metal, aerobatic glider to Nippi, Japan Aircraft Manufacturing Company. The glider license was sold because of a lack of space in the Pilatus factory, where much room is devot¬ed to production of the PC 7 Turbo Trainer. Seventy eight B 4s were sold in 1977, and 320 were in operation. The first Japanese airplanes were expected in April 1979.

The take-over of the assets of Britten-Norman by Pilatus Aircraft was finalised on 34 January 1979 when the necessary documents were signed. To conclude the deal, Pilatus – itself a member of the Oerlilon-Buehrje Group – set up a British subsidiary, Pilatus Britten-Norman Ltd, and this company has acquired the B-N assets which include the Bembridge factory, the complete Islander / Trilander production hardware (plus stock materials) located at the Fairey SA factory in Gosselies, Belgium and the exclusive production and marketing rights for all Britten-Norman products.

In July 1998 Pilatus sold Britten-Norman to private investment company Litchfield Continental Ltd.

PIK

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Polyteknikkojen llmailukerho
Finland
The Flying Club of the Finnish Institute of Technology was founded in 1932 and built a series of gliders; the PIK-20 high-performance sailplane was still in production through the 1990s. PIK has also built several low-wing single-engine monoplanes, the PIK-11 in 1953, the PIK-15 glider tug in 1964, and the PIK-19 glider tug and two-seat trainer in 1972.

Pietsuj, Alexei Ivanovich

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Alexei Ivanovich Pietsuj (Russian: Алексей Иванович Пьецух) was born in 1918 in Vínnitsa, Ukraine. At age 16, he built a small glider, called PAI-1, in which he learned to fly and demonstrated at Aviation Day parties in Kiev. For this device he would receive the award for the youngest constructor in the national competition for light aircraft.

Later, working in the Osoaviajim Glider Factory and under the direction of Oleg Konstantínovich Antonov and BN Sheremetiev he would build his second model, called PAI-2 “Pavel Golovin” in 1937, followed by PAI-3in 1937 itself. Pietsuj worked as a teacher at the glider school, developing the PAI-4 tailless glider in that period.

From 1939 on he was called up to serve in the ranks of the Red Army.

During the Great Patriotic War he served as a tug pilot in the glider section of the air landing troops. He was tasked with piloting an Ilyushin Il-4 to tow gliders towards the front line, but Pietsuj requested a fight. After his request was denied three times, in reply he made a dead link between Nesterov and the Il-4. His performance was branded as “dangerous vandalism”, for which he was handed over to a court, demoted to the ranks and sent to a punishment battalion. On his first night he made seven combat sorties in a Polikarpov Po-2 bomber. After two months the accusation was withdrawn in court.

As a pilot of the 44th Guards Bombardment Aviation Regiment and the Don Red Flag belonging to the 9th Guards Bombardment Division, he carried out 91 combat sorties. He participated in the fighting for Warsaw.

In the spring of 1945 in Germany and with the help of several soldiers, he managed to assemble a flight-capable Messerschmitt Me-410 using components from three aircraft. At the controls of the Me-410 he airlifted it to Moscow. In June this aircraft was tested on the NII VVS.

After the victory he began working as a test pilot in the GK NII VVS, serving in the V. Ye squad. Golofastov. At this stage he built the PAI-5 (1947) and PAI-6 (1949) gliders with aerobatic capacity, which participated in several aerial demonstrations for the Air Fleet Day in Túshino. He was the test pilot PAI-5 (02- 1948) towed gliders Antonov A-7 from Ilyushin Il-4. As a test pilot he flew in more than 60 types of aircraft and gliders.

In the early 1950s Pietsuj organized a student construction bureau among the students of the Moscow Aviation Institute. In this institution he developed the glider models PAI-6M (1952), MAI-56 (1956), MAI-63 (1964), MAI-68 “Pushinka” (1970) and the MAI-58 (1958) and MAI- 62 (1962), as well as the MAI-63M motor glider. He personally tested the MAI-53 models in 1954, MAI-56 in 1958, MAI-62 in 1965, MAI-63 in 1964 and MAI-63M in 1965.

He lived in the village “Liotchik Ispitatiel” (Test Pilot) of the city Iksha, in the Moscow suburbs. He built a house made of bottles there. He died in 1994.

Military grade
Captain

Awards and distinctions
Order of the Great Patriotic War Second Class (5-02- 1988)
Twice Order of the Red Banner (04- 1945, 1948)
Medals

Pietsuj was the author of several articles published in the pre-war period in the magazine “Samoliot”.

He wrote the book “Krylya Molodiozhi” (Youth Wings), published by the Moscow publishing house “Oborongiz” in 1954.

Pieniazek, Eugeniusz

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Eugeniusz Pieniazek was well-known pilot in aviation circles in 1960s Poland, he flew gliders in Polish aviation exhibitions in Sweden, but then the Polish security service tried to recruit him. When he wouldn’t cooperate, they started a file on him and refused to grant him permission to fly. He lost his job and his passport — but, crucially, not his pilot’s license.

Using a Continental aircraft engine and parts from different gliders he assembled a wooden plane, which his daughter named the Kukulka, or Cuckoo, in their apartment in Leszno, about 200 miles west of Warsaw. This wasn’t a secret. It was the first self-constructed plane registered with Polish authorities.

On September 13, 1971, Pieniazek flew south in the middle of a storm across Hungary to what was then Yugoslavia. Even though it too was under communist rule, Marshall Tito had broken with Stalin and the Soviet Union in 1948, and since then the country had more or less gone its own non-aligned way.

Pieniazek’s supporters didn’t know for months whether he’d made it or not, and the country mourned what they assumed was the loss of their pilot hero. In fact, by flying low under the radar and following railway lines — his main navigational tool was a road map — he had managed to land safely just inside the Yugoslav border in the town of Subotica (now in Serbia) after a four-hour flight.

Without a passport, he was immediately arrested and thrown in prison. The Yugoslavian authorities apparently never informed Poland that they’d taken their do-it-yourself airman prisoner.

Seven months went by. Then, one day, the warden simply told Pieniazek to leave (Yugoslav officials held onto the Cuckoo). The airman was taken to the Austrian border, where he managed to successfully apply for asylum in Sweden, leveraging the contacts he’d made there doing air shows a decade earlier.

Once in Sweden, Pieniazek spent two years arranging for his family to join him. As a precautionary measure, two years before escaping, he’d divorced his wife out of fear for her safety, and that meant she was free to enter a sham marriage with a Swede and emigrate with their daughter to join Pieniazek.

Pieniazek became a political refugee in Sweden, but after some time he was able to retrieve Kukulka. Pieniazek drove to Yugoslavia, paid for two years of hangar storage fees and towed the Cuckoo back to Sweden behind their Volkswagen Beetle with the plane’s wings tied on top. The plane sat at the airport for 17 years before restoration and registration had her back in flight condition.

After the end of communist rule in Poland, in 1989, Pieniazek returned home to Leszno in Poland, where he founded the Experimental Aviation Association and continued to build planes, barely remembered for his place in Polish history, until his exploits were featured in a 1998 Polish documentary. Then, in 2005, he was the subject of an episode in a national TV series titled Great Escapes. That same year the Cuckoo took up residence at the Krakow’s Museum of Aviation, where it is still displayed.

Piel

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Piel Aviation Sa
Avions Claude Piel

Claude Piel produced a series of light aircraft from the early 1950s, most famous of which was the Emeraude two-seater with, in its original CP.30 form, a 65 hp Continental engine. Hundreds of Emeraudes of varying types were built under license by companies in a number of countries. This company (instead of original Piel Aviation SA) continues to market Piel aircraft in plans form, including single-seat CP.80 Zef racing monoplane, CP.90 Pinocchio single-seat monoplane (single-seat variant of Emeraude), CP.328 Super Emeraude (also has been commercially built), CP.402 Donald single-seat high-wing cabin monoplane (first flown 1953), CP.605 Diamant three/four-seat cabin monoplane (first flown 1964 in CP.604 prototype form) and is certificated for commercial production, CP.751 Beryl tandem two-seat monoplane, and CP.1320 Saphir three-seat monoplane.
An aeronautical engineer, he designed a complete family of aircraft. Claude Piel died in August 1982.

1983: Madame Vetive Piel, 104 cote de Beulle, chemin des Alouettes, 78580 Maule, France.