Test pilot Paul Mulcahy, who has some 11,000 hours under his belt, flew the PC-24 as pilot in command. He has already test flown countless aircraft types and has acquired a wealth of experience on twin-engine business jets. The copilot was Reto Aeschlimann who said "Everything looks great so far! Beautiful handling, the PC-24 flies just as expected, a real Pilatus aircraft!". 

Throughout the flight, the PC-24 was accompanied and monitored by a PC-21, as is normal on maiden flights. The PC-24 landing gear was not retracted on this occasion. Twelve flight test engineers watched the flight from the ground keeping an eye on a stream of real-time flight data received from the PC-24. 

In recent months, the PC-24 handling characteristics had been trialed and refined during numerous tests using simulators and models placed in a wind tunnel. As part of the development team, the two pilots were involved in these tests; their role during the maiden flight was to verify the accuracy of the theoretical assumptions.