If you’re expecting to hear that there have been significant performance improvements in the last 30 years, forget it. Today’s Archer is very much the airplane it has always been, only different and better. In the arena that counts the most, the Archer has endured for more than 50 years. It’s nevertheless significant that various versions of the PA-28-180 received a strong financial endorsement from the people who really matter-buyers. Look back through the history of aviation, and you’ll find examples of airplanes that were cleverly marketed and sold well – for a while – but weren’t exactly winners in the sky. None of this is to suggest that commercial success and superior aeronautical design are synonymous. Beech’s Sport and Sundowner, Cessna’s Cutlass, Hawk XP, and Cardinal, and the Grumman American Tiger are gone, and the only other airplane remaining in the class is the Skyhawk S. Today’s PA-28-181 Archer can trace its roots to the original Cherokee 180 of 1963, a design that has gradually outlived virtually all its competitors. The more powerful Dakota may be the better high-performance load lifter and the Warrior a superior economy champ, but the Archer is the in-between machine that sells. The PA28-181 Archer is built around the carbureted, 180-hp, O-360 Lycoming, certainly one of the industry’s legends for reliability, durability, and economy. Technically, the Cherokees were all straight-wing airplanes, and Piper probably cringes every time some smart-aleck aviation writer calls the newer, semi-tapered designs “Cherokees.” Still, a Cherokee by any other name would still be as friendly, stable, and forgiving.Ĭall it an Archer and you’ve just named what many pilots consider the best compromise of power, performance, useful load, and economy in the PA28 line, not to mention one of the longest-lived Pipers still in production-now well-past a half-century. In fact, the original Cherokees were built with 400 fewer parts than the PA22 Tri-Pacer. Weick and Thorpe concentrated on gentle handling and efficient, production-simple construction. In slight contrast, the Cherokee would stall, but only reluctantly, and spins were highly unlikely. While it’s true today’s four-seat, fixed-gear Pipers have long since ceased being plain-Jane Cherokees, the airplanes need make no apologies for their lineage.ĭesigners Fred Weick and John Thorpe were obsessed with safety and simplicity when they conceived the Cherokee, and Weick’s previous design success, the Ercoupe, was an essentially unstallable, unspinnable machine. Many people regard the Piper Archer as the quintessential Cherokee. Featured Plane Archer: In the Fourth Generation Reliability and Easy Handling have ma de the Archer a Mainstay in the Piper Lineup
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