Used Aircraft Guide

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The Piper Arrow is, in a way, like a Ford Taurus. Not the fastest, not the roomiest, not the most stylish… but it has enough of all of those qualities to give it enduring popularity. For those unable to afford a Mooney or Bonanza, it offers a less expensive, though still reasonably capable, cross-country machine. It also has the advantage of not being an orphan – the Arrow is still being made.

The Arrow, since its really just a retractable Cherokee (or Archer), is a logical step-up airplane for pilots who now fly fixed-gear Pipers. Everything will be familiar, from gauge placement to handling and procedures. And that, of course, was the basic marketing model for all of t…

[IMGCAP(1)]In 1978, the Cessna P210 was a real landmark. While not literally the first pressurized single (the Mooney Mustang was the first real attempt), it was the first one that was truly viable. It was (and is) remarkably inexpensive for a pressurized airplane. What that means is that its very expensive, just not as bad as the other choices a prospective purchaser is faced with.

What pressurization does, directly, is offer the ability to fly over much enroute weather in relative comfort. Indirectly, it offers somewhat lower noise levels and a more solid feel, the result of the reinforcement needed for pressurization.

There is a price to be paid for operating a pressurized airplan…

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Saddled with a battered image, handicapped by a powerplant with a nasty reputation, the Turbo Arrow should be approached with caution. But various upgrades and a kind of Darwin effect may have weeded out many of the real clunkers by now.

When Piper hung a 200-HP turbocharged Continental onto the basic Arrow airframe in 1977, the combination looked like one made in heaven, rather than Vero Beach.

It was a perfect match: the worlds premier economy retractable single and a K-Mart kind of powerplant that promised high-tech performance at low-tech prices.

Alas, the engine was finicky, tricky to operate and prone to self destruction. Things got so bad that the National Tr…

[IMGCAP(1)]Many an aircraft owner has rationalized an expensive airplane purchase with this reasoning: Yes, it costs a ton of money to own but it saves me so much time that its a bargain.

Put a sharp pencil to that equation, however, and the numbers start to look like that fuzzy math a certain Texas governor has so much trouble understanding. The truth is, for GA owners, airplane economics rarely push the bottom line into black ink.

One exception to that is a certain class of working airplanes, the sort that haul freight and passengers over short distances, spray chemicals and fertilizer, snap photos for survey work and, in general, do the scut work where there’s profit but no glamou…

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The Tomahawk, one of the last all-new designs introduced by Piper before the great general aviation slump of the 1980s, was supposed to be the ultimate primary trainer. It was billed as a design that answered the wishes of flight instructors and students everywhere.

It certainly had a few things going for it. Definitely sportier-looking than its main competition, the Cessna 152, the Tomahawk offered a reliable engine, good visibility, a hefty 30-gallon fuel capacity and we’ll thought out systems. But it was hit with a series of troubles early on; these, of course, were rectified through ADs and service bulletins, but before the PA-38s reputation could be restored production…

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The basic 150-HP four-place, fixed-gear single is about as close to an everyman airplane as you can get. Its the market segment where airplanes become just capable enough to be practical transportation tools. They wont haul a lot of people or cargo, but they will lift enough. They wont go all that far or all that fast, but they will perform adequately. Airplanes in this class are sort of like Toyotas: Not terribly exciting or fancy, perhaps, but they do what you need them to without costing an arm and a leg.

The Cessna Skyhawk still owns this market, and the prices of used airplanes reflect that dominance. However, at least two of its mainstream competitors, the Piper Wa…

[IMGCAP(1)]Pilots shopping the field for a high-performance retractable sometimes have one of those forehead-slapping moments when the Cessna 182 RG is mentioned.

For reasons probably related to the Skylanes rep as a stodgy family sedan, its not often considered in league with the likes of Bonanzas, Mooneys and even Cessna 210s.

Yet there it is. The Skylane RG has good performance, hauls a load and is a reasonable buy, although in recent years, thanks to demand, its value has spiked compared to Mooneys and Bonanzas.

Mechanically, the 182RG is somewhat of a mixed bag. The landing gear has a troublesome history and although it performs we’ll if maintained, its simply not the equa…

[IMGCAP(1)]This big, burly single is Cessnas equivalent of a mid-sized pickup truck, able to tote a load into (and out of) a variety of out-of-the-way places. The 185 is in many ways the epitome of the working airplane, designed specifically to haul big loads and operate from unimproved strips. Over the years, its proven very capable and popular.

History
The Cessna 185 was introduced in 1961 as a more powerful sibling to the popular 180, which had already been in production for eight years. The 185 outlasted the 180 by four years: the 180s last year of production was 1981, the 185s was 1985.

Physically, the two airplanes are quite similar with comparable dimensions. The…

[IMGCAP(1)]A long-standing axiom is that speed sells. Thats true, but only half way: The other side of the coin is load carrying, a trait that for some is more important than getting there fast.

Periodically, the public decides that big, heavy load-haulers are desirable (usually when fuel is relatively cheap). That accounts for the current popularity of enormous truck-like vehicles on the roads, and the skyrocketing prices of airplanes like the Cessna 206.

This aerial sport/ute is not fast, but its stable, rugged, reliable, has six real seats and is remarkable for being able to carry a half-ton or so after the tanks are filled.

So popular is the combination of simplicity and loa…

[IMGCAP(1)]No doubt about it, the original Cardinal was a flop. Suffering from poor performance and troubling aerodynamic qualities, the 177 quickly acquired a bad reputation that haunted the design for years. It could be said that it never really recovered; Cessna ended up discontinuing the Cardinal after 10 years, replacing it with the Hawk XP. Too bad, because the later Cardinals were much better than the originals, and superior to the Hawk XP, to boot.

History
The first Cardinals appeared in 1968. It was markedly different from other Cessna singles (and still is-none of the Cardinals unique features made their way into other designs). It had a stabilator, and a cabin that…

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Once prized for squeezing lots of knots out of relatively small engines, Mooneys are no longer taking a back seat in the horsepower race. The trend toward hot-rodding Mooneys is continuing, with the introduction of the Mooney Missile from Darwin Conrads Rocket Engineering, which consists of a large-block, normally aspirated engine stuffed into the Mooneys slick airframe. Rocket Engineering also does conversions to the 305 Rocket, in which a TSIO-520 is mated to an M20K airframe.

Not to be outdone by the aftermarket crowd, the Mooney factory rolled out its own high-horsepower act in 1994, in the form the M20R Ovation. Both of these aircraft represent essentially re-engini…

[IMGCAP(1)]To some eyes, the Cessna 177 Cardinal RG is the sleekest and most attractive piston single the manufacturer ever built. The Cardinal RG shares its fixed-gear siblings strutless wing, rakish cowl and windshield, along with a seating position that lets the pilot see past the leading edge of the wing, while allowing all four occupants to ride in the shade.

Owners say that the Cardinal RG has many good points. Its faster than most of its peers (Mooneys being the obvious exception), roomier than all but the Beech Sierra, and has a better useful load than the competition, to boot. However, there are some notorious problems that prospective buyers should be aware of before consider…