The Swiss love adding functionality to existing products. But you can only tack on so many corkscrews and tweezers to a knife, so one company decided to make a twin-engine jet that can take off and land without the luxury of a runway.

Pilatus Aircraft has been producing airplanes since the 1940s, but the Swiss firm's newest model, the PC-24, is its first jet. Pilatus didn't want to just be another jet maker. Instead, the company borrowed from its very successful single-engine turboprop, the PC-12, to create a jet that can do everything conventional business jets can do and fly in and out of relatively short, unpaved runways. Oh, and it has a big cargo door as well.

The private jet sector has several categories, ranging from the "very light jets" that can carry four or five passengers to the globetrotters capable of carrying a dozen or more. Pilatus placed the PC-24 somewhere in the middle, and says the unrivaled capabilities of the plane create a new category: The "super versatile jet."

The new twin jet will have a max cruise speed of 425 knots (489 mph) and a max range of nearly 2,000 miles. Those are good numbers for an airplane in the six- to eight-passenger category (though the passenger list will probably be a bit shorter than that if the plane is to fly that fast or that far).

The new PC-24 also takes notes from the legendary Pilatus Porter (the PC-6, for those keeping track), a bush plane capable of landing where runways are simply clearings on a hillside. Its ability to utilize dirt runways is due in part to engines mounted unusually high on the fuselage, keeping them as far as possible from debris kicked up from the ground. The rough runway ability combined with a large cargo door likely will make the plane popular as an air ambulance, a task the PC-12 has been used for in locations around the world, including northern Canada and the Australian outback. With the ability to take off in less than 3,000 feet and land in just 2,500 feet, the PC-24 also will enjoy enjoy far broader access to paved runways worldwide than its competitors that require more space to take off and land.

Pilatus says it has begun building the first prototype and expects to make the first flight late next year, but for now, it's just a rendering and a dream.