Marco Leon wrote:

Those are great numbers. Seems odd to me that the various media outlets
never refer to them as "haulers" given that it's the same useful load as
many six-seaters. I guess it's because the Dakota will always get the nod
since it carries more with the same airframe.


I like to think of them as economical haulers. If you need to lift 4
people and light baggage, with a relatively low fuel burn, the Archer series
is a good choice. If you need more capacity, you step up to the Dakota if
you just need to lift more weight, or the Six series if you need more seats.

As far as numbers go, I quit relying on "book" numbers a long time ago.
The 1160 lb. useful load you cited for the Archer II would be for a plane
with a stripped panel and stripped interior. It would be unlikely for you to
find that number in the real world. As a rule, if you start with the '63
Cherokee 180 and take (real world) samples of useful loads, you will see the
number start in the high 1000s and generally go lower as the years go by.
The reason is that throughout it's life, the horsepower has remained the same
(180 hp), yet the numerous improvements have taken their toll in weight.
Piper has tried to mitigate this by increasing the gross weight by 150 lbs.
over the years, but you can't keep trading performance for capacity
indefinitely.

I have a friend with an early serial number '63 Cherokee 180 and his useful
load is 1085 lbs. The '05 Archer III I flew a couple of years ago (Sabena
training plane, not a lot of options) had a useful load of 825 lbs.

John Galban=====N4BQ (PA28-180)

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