Piper Aircraft
Gear Up: A Broken Heater and Lunch
Sitting at Mickey’s Diner in Enfield, New Hampshire, across the lunch table from my almost 90-year-old father, I tell him about the heater on the Cheyenne. The heater had stopped working on a flight from Tampa to New England. It got very cold up there at 25,000 feet, so we landed at Westfield-Barnes Airport in […]
An Added Lesson
This was a day of contrasts. It started with my lesson in the P28. Weather looked ok at the time of briefing but had changed somewhat after we got through the preflight. A wind change meant a different runway and the direction we planned to depart toward had become “dark”. A new plan. So instead […]
Six Seat Stalwart: Used PA-32 Review
The six-seat Piper singles deliver a lot of utility for the price on the used market.
Six Seat Stalwart: Used PA-32 Review
It’s been 45 years since Piper stretched the Cherokee fuselage to create the Six, and the much refined version of the airplane remains in production as the Saratoga II. That kind of production longevity is proof that Piper found an enduring market niche for the PA-32 family, and solid demand on the used market even […]
Piper’s LSA Entry Takes First Bow
119-Knot Cruise on 100-hp; and priced from $119,900 to $139,900
Piper’s LSA Entry Takes First Bow
The PiperSport made its debut at the Light Sport Aircraft show in Sebring, Florida on Thursday, and the news has the industry buzzing louder than the little two-placer’s Rotax 912 engine (which can run on 100LL or unleaded auto fuel). With Cessna enjoying a fat order book for its Light Sport trainer, the SkyCatcher, Piper […]
Piper Plans LSA Announcement
Piper had planned to make an announcement at the U.S. Sport Aviation Expo in Sebring, Florida, today. Piper did not reveal any details of the planned announcement before hand, but the fact that the announcement will be made at the fourth annual U.S. Sport Aviation Expo has ignited all manner of speculation that Piper will […]
Gear Up: Time to Pay for the Piper
One hundred seventy-seven flight hours from now, the engines on our 1980 Piper Cheyenne will reach TBO. That’s about 13 months away, given our average yearly flying. This milestone has precipitated all sorts of careful calculations in my house. Should we pay to overhaul the engines? Why put that much money into an ancient airframe? […]
Piper Adds G1000 to Mirage and Matrix
Piper has completed certification allowing it to offer the Garmin G1000 avionics suite on its Mirage and Matrix aircraft models. The G1000 was previously available on the Piper Meridian. With the new certification, the G1000 panel is now available on all three Piper PA-46 versions. Both the Mirage and Matrix are piston-powered — the Mirage […]