Piper Aircraft

The pilot, 69, had almost finished a six-month refurbishment of a Piper PA-12 Super Cruiser. He had been rebuilding airplanes for 40 years, and his habit was to have a certain A&P mechanic perform a “semifinal” inspection as each project neared completion. The mechanic would give him a list of things that needed to be […]

Flight training specialist ATP isn’t listening to the doom and gloom about the sad state of general aviation shipments and billings for the first three quarters of 2010. It just ordered six new Piper Seminole light twins, which, when delivered before year end, will increase the school’s fleet of Seminoles to 87 nationwide, complemented by […]

Piper has totally redesigned the PiperJet airframe, and given the single-engine jet a new name — Altaire. The old fuselage on the proof-of-concept PiperJet was the same as the PA-46 Mirage/Meridian — round on top and flat on the bottom. It is now a circular cross-section, making it easier to increase the cabin volume of […]

Open a desk drawer at work and there it is. Check the bedside table; there it is again — a single sheet of glossy paper, almost as thick as cardboard, with a flattering shot of my favorite turboprop: the Piper Cheyenne. The airplane is dear to me because my wife and I own one. The […]

Many piston singles have much of the avionics capability of turbine-powered airplanes, but the Piper Matrix now has it all. Late last year Piper certified the same Garmin G1000 flat-glass avionics system in the unpressurized Matrix, and its pressurized sibling, the Mirage, that had been offered earlier in the turboprop Meridian. The claim that the […]

Piper’s unpressurized cabin-class piston single now has the cockpit of a turbine.

The biggest photo op for Piper at Sun ‘n Fun was the first delivery of a PiperSport light sport aircraft (LSA). Three co-owners took delivery of their new airplane, with the common thread being their high levels of flying experience. Two were former airline pilots and current Airbus simulator instructors with 20,000 and 16,000 hours […]

Randy Groom will join Piper Aircraft as executive vp of sales on June 1, a move that signals Piper is, indeed, serious about leveraging its position as a GA airframer. Not that that was ever in question, but signing an aviation veteran with Groom’s impressive resume is further proof that the local Piper dealer will […]

Piper is a company built on the two-seat Cub, the light-sport airplane of its day, and now, with introduction of the PiperSport, it is returning to its roots. The PiperSport, a two-seater in the Light-Sport Airplane (LSA) category, gives the company a new entry level in terms of cost, particularly for flight training. The PiperSport […]

Piper goes back to its roots with this two-seater LSA.