In attitude control of quad-rotor aircraft, the conventional Proportion-Integration-Differentiation (PID)closed-loop algorithm has the problems of complex parameter tuning, and large overshoot due to closed-loop zero. According to the system dynamic performance requirements, and by improving the traditional PID control algorithm, an optimal PID algorithm with pre-filtering performance is designed based on the time and the Integral Absolute Error (ITAE) indicators. Matlab-Simulink is used for making contrast experiment to the traditional PID control and optimal PID control with pre-filtering algorithm. The results showed that: 1) The optimal PID control with pre-filter has an adjusting time less than 0. 5 s, and overshoot less than 5%, which can effectively suppressing the impact of closed-loop zero on the overshoot while guaranteeing rapid system response; and 2) The proposed method has higher control quality, and is better than traditional PID control.