Twin Engine Piper Aircraft

Twin Engine Piper Aircraft - There are, as you are undoubtedly aware, fewer than 10 twin-engine models in current production, some of those built in very small numbers. Piper did not sell any of its once-popular Seneca models last year, and Beech sold 15 Barons.

Worldwide, twins accounted for fewer than 100 sales, and that has been the case for nearly 20 years now. The reason was not just that these planes offered the security of a second engine, although that was their primary selling point.

Twin Engine Piper Aircraft

Other big draws were combinations of a twin's often-higher speeds, greater hauling capacity and larger cabin. Other developments helping Piper's business during the year included FAA approval of a Master Minimum Equipment List, or MMEL, making it easier to use the M600/SLS for Part 135 charter service.

Our Roundup Of Light Twin Aircraft

That model also received approval for operation from unpaved fields, which increases its flexibility. Last year Piper also announced its collaboration with CAE to develop a supplemental type certificate for an electric-powered PA-28-181 Archer. The company attributed the increased deliveries to flight schools including ATP Flight School, Spartan College, and American Flyers enlarging their fleets.

New customers joining its Piper Flight School Alliance program, including Thrust Flight and Fly Gateway, also boosted deliveries. New for this year in the Seminole are fuel-injected Lycoming IO-360 B1G6 engines as standard, flat rated at 180 horsepower each.

Last year's Aspen standby displays have been replaced by the Garmin G5, complementing the Seminole's Garmin G1000NXi main avionics suite. Also now standard is Garmin's GTX345 ADS-B In/Out transponder. In 1965, the PA-30B was introduced. You can tell a B model by its six seats and third side windows.

The options list was expanded to include wingtip fuel tanks, a heated windshield, propeller anti-ice, and an oxygen system. (NB: The Twin Comanche is not certified for flight in known icing conditions.) The tip tanks, which carry an extra 30 gallons of fuel, proved a very popular option, and by the late 1960s most Twin Comanches had either been ordered with them.

or outfitted with aftermarket tip tanks then manufactured by Britain Industries. Even as late as 35 years ago, twin-engine aircraft occupied a special place in the world of light aircraft. There were more than two dozen models on the market, and the launch of an exciting new model was an important moment for the plane's manufacturer.

Pilots of every experience status north of absolute beginner were candidates to buy a twin, and buy them they did. The Piper Aztec, Twin Comanche and Seneca, the Beech Travel Air, the Barons models 55 and 58, the jaunty high-spirited Duke and the lower-cost Duchess were all popular models.

Cessna, with its uber-popular 310 (and derivatives), the cabin-class pressurized 421 Golden Eagle and the 340, among a handful of others, filled the market to bursting, along with the oddball but very popular 337 push-pull twin.

Piper calls on the "tried and true" character of the Seminole in its brochure, noting that pilots have learned the rudiments of multi-engine flying in them for generations. And with upgraded avionics, amenities and power plants, the company is confident that many more generations to come will do the same.

A commercial pilot, editor-in-Chief Isabel Goyer has been flying for more than 40 years, with hundreds of different aircraft in her logbook and thousands of hours. An award-winning aviation writer, photographer and editor, Ms. Goyer led teams at Sport Pilot, Air Progress and Flying before coming to Plane & Pilot in 2015.

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The Vero Beach, Florida company said deliveries in its trainer lineup, which includes the single-engine Archer family, the Pilot 100i and the twin-engine Seminole, totaled 167 aircraft. Among the trainers, Piper made 150 domestic deliveries and 17 to international customers.

So, the argument goes, given that singles don't have such a critical failure mode, and given that relatively few fatal accidents are caused by the loss of the single's one powerplant, one's odds might just be better in a single than in a twin.

, at least in that regard. Then again, the counterargument goes, all of the engine failures in twins that result in a safe landing somewhere never make it into the accident statistics, so the lives saved by that second engine are certainly greater than we know or have ever known.

Piper's sole remaining twin (there are no plans to build Senecas in Vero Beach this year), the Seminole is a true survivor. First offered in the late 1970s (then with just 160 ponies per side), it has served university flight programs, dedicated flight academies and mom 'n pop flight schools well for decades.

And owner-pilots sprinkle the roster of Seminole operators as well, especially those who regularly fly where you'll go for a long swim if your single engine packs it in. A feature well-liked by owner-pilots, the T-tail Seminole's counter-rotating engines help mitigate the danger of loss of control after a takeoff engine failure.

The two-blade Hartzell constant-speed scimitar props are full-feathering. Until 35 years ago, light twins were a force to be reckoned with. Today, in both the used and new marketplace, they account for a sliver of their former glory, for some really good reasons, although the flip side of that coin, owners insist, is equally compelling.

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Many of today's twin-engine aircraft, however, are safer in design in a number of ways from earlier models. Counter-rotating props eliminate the problem of one of the engines being more dangerous to lose than the other.

Some new models feature full digital authority engine control (FADEC) and will automatically feather the prop (align the blades with the airflow for minimum drag on the dead engine). And all new-production twins feature more crashworthy structures than were required in the glory days, so some crashes are more survivable today.

By having the left propeller turn to the right and the right propeller turn to the left, the C/R models eliminate the critical engine. Yawing moments in engine-out situations are reduced, and low speed handling is greatly improved.

The first is that big one, that twins are safer, an assumption called into question back in the 1970s by a few somewhat informal studies that concluded that twin-engine safety was largely a myth. The reason was hiding in plain sight.

With a single-engine airplane, when an engine (the only one) quits, you're going to land somewhere, somehow. But in a twin, the argument has always gone, you get to keep on flying. Unfortunately, that has not always led to brochure-worthy outcomes.

The loss of an engine in a twin is especially dangerous when the engine goes on takeoff or climb out. If not handled quickly and properly, these engine failures usually result in an unsurvivable rolling crash into terrain or airport buildings.

Is there a good-looking, four- to six-place light twin that goes 170 knots on 17gph? Such objectives may seem incompatible in the same airplane, but the truth is that from 1963 to 1972 Piper built about 2,200 airplanes with those characteristics.

We're talking about the Twin Comanches. For all its performance, it may be hard for some to believe that Twin Comanches use fuel injected variants of the venerable — and nearly bulletproof — 160-horsepower Lycoming O-320 engine.

That's right, the same engine used in the Cessna Skyhawk, Piper Super Cub, and Piper Tri-Pacer, among other plodding, mundane airplanes. Age belies the instrument panels of the straight PA-30s and the -B models. By now, many have been heavily modified and improved with the latest avionics, but an original-condition airplane will have a non-standard instrument configuration.

Old-fashioned, black-background attitude indicators and backwards-turning, drum-type heading indicators were used. The heading indicator is where the attitude indicator ought to be, and the altimeter is over at the lower left, where we've come to expect to see the turn coordinator.

Narco Mark 12s were de rigueur in the early 1960s, so don't expect too much in the way of avionics sophistication from a standard-issue early Twin Comanche. Also, human factors was still an infant science in those days, and old Twin Comanches showed it.

For example, all the electrical switches were identical toggle switches, making them easy to misidentify, and circuit breakers were kept beneath a trap door below the power quadrant. That's why so much of the initial and recurrent training we do in twin-engine aircraft is with one engine caged.

Twin-engine pilots need to learn how to respond to such emergencies by second nature because the time it takes to think things through when your twin loses an engine at low altitude is usually not fast enough to survive the failure.

Early model Twin Comanches, designated PA-30s, came out between 1963 and 1965. A bare-bones, single-vacuum-pump, day-VFR-equipped, four-seat PA-30 (brochures called it the "Sportsman" version). would have cost just $33,900 or so in those days. For a top-of-the-line "Professional" Twin Comanche, you paid about $41,200.

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The Twin Comanche is an excellent airplane, and its value in the used market continues to rise. The airplane is well supported, thanks to a well-organized owners group and a plentiful supply of parts and modifications.

The pilot new to the breed should seek out qualified instruction, maintain a high level of proficiency, and be well aware of the airplane's maintenance requirements. The airplane's age should be a warning flag to prospective buyers.

Expect a continuation of the Twin Comanche's airframe problems and go into ownership with the understanding that considerable investments in airframe fixes and additional inspections may be necessary down the road. The -C and Turbo C models came out in 1968 and brought with them instrument panels laid out in the modern, standard T-configuration for the flight instruments.

Magneto and starter switches were moved to a side panel, electrical switches were converted to internally-lit rocker switches, and the circuit breakers were moved to the lower right subpanel. The C models also earned a few knots' worth of extra cruise speed, thanks to engine beef-ups that included better valves and valve guides, and sturdier and better-lubricated crankshafts and camshafts.

Production of Seminoles took a long holiday last year along with the rest of us, dropping from 40 in 2019 to 22 in 2020. And it should be noted that the Piper marketing team makes the point that its published pricing is straight up and “real-

world.” Twins still have their fans. Buyers of Beech Baron G58s and Diamond Aircraft DA-62s are shelling out well over a million for one of these gems, and they do so not only because they believe in the additional redundancy, performance and utility these planes offer, but also at least in

part because multi-engine aircraft ownership still carries with it a level of status on an altogether different plane. One can debate the safety merits of twin-engine light aircraft vis-à-vis single-engine models endlessly, and just such a debate has, indeed, been ongoing in our community for the better part of a century.

But for much of the earlier part of that conversation, there were a few assumptions about twins that were later called into question. The fuel is carried in four integral fuel cells located in the leading edge sections of the wings.

Capacity of the two main fuel cells is 30 gallons each. The auxiliary fuel system consists of two 15 gallon cells installed in the wings just outboard of the main fuel cells. Wing tip tanks are available as optional equipment.

Auxiliary fuel and tip tank fuel is to be used in level flight only. For emergency single engine operation a crossfeed is provided to increase the range. Fuel quantity is indicated by electric gauges below the instrument cluster.

"Growth in our two primary aircraft markets is of paramount importance to Piper Aircraft," said Piper president and CEO John Calcagno. "Despite the supply chain and labor challenges our industry faced this year, we were still able to deliver our aircraft as promised, create valuable enhancements across our product lineup, and pass these improvements to our Piper dealer partner network and retail customers."

The airplane is a six-place, low wing, twin engine airplane equipped with retractable tricycle landing gear. This airplane is certified in the normal category. In the normal category all aerobatic maneuvers including spins are prohibited. The airplane is approved for day and night VFR/IFR operations when equipped in accordance with F.A.R.

91 or F.A.R 135. The M-Class line includes the turbocharged and pressurized piston M350, the M500 turboprop, and the M600/SLS turboprop, which features the HALO safety system and Garmin Autoland. Piper said it delivered a total of 69 M-Class aircraft, 43 in the U.S.

and 26 internationally. They included 19 M350s, 9 M500s, and 41 M600/SLSs. Piper Aircraft Inc. said its aircraft deliveries increased 15 percent during 2022 as it made a number of updates to its flagship M600/SLS model.

The company also said it has a backlog of orders “deep into 2024” for its M-Class airplanes and into 2025 for its line of trainer aircraft.

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