Budget Buy

Piper Warriors and Archers are good first buys

Of all the airplanes in the low-cost, used, entry-level market the Piper Warrior and Archer stand out as two of the more attractive buys. They get high marks for reliability and economy, and they have a more modern look than many other low-cost airplanes. Owners boast of annual inspections in the $500 to $700 range, uncomplicated service histories, and a low number of airworthiness directives (ADs).

History

The Warrior and Archer trace their roots back to 1961 when the first PA-28 rolled out of the factory doors in Vero Beach, Florida. This airplane had a 150-horsepower Lycoming O-320 engine and a fixed-pitch propeller, and it was called the Cherokee 150. Other airplanes in this series had their O-320s rated at 160 hp; these were called Cherokee 160s. The basic Cherokee design prototype was built around a much earlier project (the PA?10 Skyscooter) headed up by legendary kitplane designer John Thorp. The Skyscooter never went into production, but 556 PA-28-150s were sold during that airplane's eight-year production run.

The Cherokee 140 (1964 to 1977, approximately 6,300 sales) was also born of the Cherokee project and so was the Cherokee 180 — a 180-hp Lycoming O-360-powered variant of the same fixed-pitch-propeller, four-seat, low-wing, stabilator-equipped, fixed-gear design. Cherokee 180s were in production from 1961 to 1975, and with 7,422 sales they ranked as one of the more successful Piper all-metal singles.

From this design sprang the PA-28R Arrow series of retractable-gear airplanes.

Warriors and Archers are primarily distinguished from their Cherokee predecessors by their double-tapered wing planform and two-foot-wider wingspans. Earlier Cherokee wings have the blocky, squarish, constant-chord wing planforms that came to be known as "Hershey Bar" wings. The first of what would be 5,272 airplanes in the Warrior series came out in 1974. (Those in the first model year were actually given the Challenger appellation but this was quickly dropped in favor of the Warrior name, to stay consistent with the rest of Piper's Native American-inspired nomenclature.) Warriors carried the PA-28-151 designation and racked up 1,898 sales until 1977. That's when the Warrior II (PA-28-161) came out. This airplane had 10 more horsepower and was a big hit, with 3,374 sales. The Warrior II advertised a 127-knot cruise speed at 75-percent power (compared to the Warrior's 109 kt). Part of the speed increase was from the more powerful engine; the rest came from improved wheel-fairing aerodynamics. From 1988 to 1990, some Warriors were dubbed Cadets, which were aimed at the trainer market, featured an austere trim package, and could be ordered with either VFR or IFR avionics.

Hits and Misses

Hits

• Feels solid and flies more like a heavier airplane — sort of the opposite of a Cessna 172.
• Easy to land.
• Manual flap system.
• Wide gear stance means steadier surface operations in high winds.
• 200-pound baggage capacity.
• Stone-simple systems and procedures.
• Earlier-model cowls are hinged, allowing good preflight access to engine compartment.

  Misses

• Leaking fuel tanks.
• Cramped rear seating area.
• Difficult entry to backseat.
• Poor climb rate in 150-hp Warriors.
• One-piece upper cowl prevents easy engine access during preflight in later models.
• Removing wheelpants can reduce cruise speed by up to 8 knots and cut maximum range by 4 percent.
• Slow cranking during engine starts in cold weather (with aluminum battery cables).
• Slick magnetos on some Archer IIs have been troublesome.
• Older panels have engine gauges on the subpanel, where they can be difficult to see.

Archers — which were simply renamed Cherokee 180s — also debuted in 1974, and made their entry wearing the old Hershey Bar wings. They differed from the Warrior not just in the horsepower department, but also in size. In 1973 the airplane was given a five-inch fuselage stretch; a bigger door, cabin, and stabilator area; a new version of the O-360; a 50-pound gross weight increase; and an instrument panel redesign. Like the Warrior, airplanes in the 1974 model year were first called Challengers.

In 1976 Archers got the tapered wing and were renamed Archer IIs. Archer manuals proclaim maximum cruise speeds in the 125-kt range at 75-percent power — about the same as the Warrior II's — but Archers have maximum gross weights 225 pounds greater.

We've been talking about Warriors and Archers in terms of the past, but here's the kicker: Technically, these airplanes are still in production. Prospective buyers of older Warriors and Archers can take some comfort in knowing that parts availability should not be nearly the problem that it is for some out-of-production makes and models.

Performance, handling, and useful load

Let's just say this up front: Warriors and Archers aren't speed demons. Realistically, you'll get maximum true airspeeds of 120 kt or so from an Archer, and perhaps 109 kt from a Warrior. Fuel burns at these settings will be approximately 9.5 gph for a Warrior and 10.5 gph for an Archer. At 55-percent power and best-economy mixture settings, maximum ranges (with a 45-minute fuel reserve) are about 650 nm in Archers and 800 nm in Warriors. Of course, if you fly at those power settings you'll lop 15 to 20 kt off your maximum cruise speed potential. At 75-percent power and optimum altitudes, ranges drop to 550 nm or so for Archers, 600 nm for Warrior IIs, and about 650 nm for 150-hp Warriors. The Warrior and Archer both have 48-gallon (usable) fuel tanks.

Useful loads vary with each airplane, of course, but Piper and The New Piper give maximum useful load figures of approximately 980 pounds for both the Warrior and Archer, and 1,090 pounds for post-1982 Warrior IIs. Consequently, payloads with full fuel run about 700 to 800 pounds — not bad. Fill the tanks to the tabs (the 17-gallon mark in each wing tank) and your useful load jumps to approximately 775 to 886 pounds. Enough to take a spouse and kids on a 300-nm trip, say.

The Warrior and Archer are tame, docile creatures with unremarkable handling characteristics. The stall is almost a nonevent, and these airplanes take a lot of provoking to spin. Many pilots feel that Warriors and Archers are among the easiest light airplanes to consistently land well. They handle crosswinds with minimal fuss and minimal footwork, and make you look good in front of passengers and airport gawkers alike.

Quirks

There are few quirks, which is another reason for the Warrior and Archer's popularity. The fuel selector is located on the lower left sidewall, over by the pilot's left knee. This makes it awkward to reach. Add in the selector's three-position design (Off — Left — Right) and you have to pay attention to a clumsy spot. It's up to the pilot to balance the fuel load as a flight progresses because there is no Both position, as in Cessna 100-series airplanes. Flight instructors may find it particularly awkward to reach the fuel selector, because they have to reach across the pilot's legs.

Some Warrior and Archer battery cables were made of aluminum in an attempt to save weight. Dissimilar-metal corrosion and overheating can set in at the battery terminals with this arrangement, and this problem is compounded by hard starting in pre-1983 models. The reduced cranking power was a function of those models' long cable runs (the battery is under the backseat, la Volkswagen Beetle). After the 1983 model year the battery was moved to the engine compartment. By now, many owners have replaced the aluminum cables with copper ones, so this would be an important item to look for when checking out a used Warrior or Archer.

One man's Warrior

John Westerman, a senior manager in a major dot-com company, bought his 1982 Warrior II in 1997 for $45,000. It's N198FT, and it's based at Maryland's Frederick Municipal Airport — AOPA's home field. Westerman believes the airplane began life as a trainer at the Florida Institute of Technology because of the N number's FT suffix. The airframe is pushing 10,000 hours, and Westerman thinks the airplane is on its fourth or fifth engine.

It was a good buy because it came with a new engine, a Precise Flight standby vacuum system, and two electric fuel boost pumps. "I learned to fly in Cessna 152s, so I knew all about them," Westerman said. "What I wanted was a reasonably priced airplane that I could use to get my instrument rating and that would fly well in clouds and turbulence." He wanted a low-wing airplane because "I like to see the runway when I'm turning from base to final."

"I can fill it up and take my family on trips to the Outer Banks [North Carolina] or Cape May [New Jersey] from Frederick," Westerman said. He also runs a small business taking aerial photographs from his Warrior. He's put some 500 hours on the airplane and reports no airframe or engine squawks in the entire time he's owned it. His annual inspections run approximately $850, but one year he dealt with a $4,000 annual. That was when his tachometer and starter flywheel needed to be replaced. Labor costs associated with removing, replacing, and rebalancing the propeller (a necessary task when replacing the flywheel) accounted for most of the charge for that killer annual.

His list of improvements includes adding a vertical card magnetic compass, replacing the pilot's side window, adding a second VOR nav head (with glideslope capability), and installing a replacement attitude indicator, heading indicator, and digital chronometer. "That's it," he said with a smile. "It can handle everything I need to do."

ASF's Archer II

Three years ago, a kind soul donated a 1980 Archer II — N8121K — to the AOPA Air Safety Foundation. The donor got a nice tax break and AOPA and ASF pilot-employees got a nice airplane for training, maintaining pilot proficiency, and participating in automatic dependent surveillance broadcast (ADS-B) and partial-panel research programs. The airplane flies approximately 500 hours per year, and for the most part it has run like a top. It's rugged and uncomplaining.

One big maintenance item was the fuel tanks. They sprang leaks and had to be replaced, a costly and time-consuming job that required disassembling major portions of the wings.

The Archer came to ASF well-used, to say the least. It had a damage history; both wings and the windshield had been smashed in an accident. The interior was cracked and beat up with age. The paint was literally falling off the fuselage. Over the years ASF has owned it, the airplane has been gradually fixed up. A new interior was donated by Air Mod of Batavia, Ohio. Sunshine Aviation of Portland, Tennessee, gave 8121K a new paint job. UPS Aviation Technologies gave the airplane a full stack of avionics — an Apollo GX60 GPS/com, an SL30 VHF nav/com, and an MX20 moving-map display — so the airplane could participate in extensive FAA experiments and demonstrations involving uplinked weather and ADS-B traffic information.

Given its damage history and dilapidated condition, our Archer was probably worth no more than $30,000 when it came to us. Today, after all the upgrades, it could probably fetch $60,000. Without the damage history, a broker could get as much as $70,000.

Vref says

The Warrior and Archer are strong values in the used marketplace, but their prices have been slowly dropping. Vref is an aircraft value guide that's updated and published four times per year. According to a recent 2001 Vref report, 50-hp Warriors are going for anywhere from $34,000 to $43,000. Warrior IIs were given retail prices running from $47,000 (1977 models) to $139,000 (2000 model year). Wholesale prices can run from $10,000 to $30,000 less than retail. Archer retail prices run from $51,000 (1974) to the 2000 Archer II's price of $176,000.

It's important to remember that Vref's valuations work on a sliding scale. A good-looking airplane always sells for more than a dog. Model year means much, much less than the airplane's condition. Also, when Vref posts a price it assumes an airplane with complete logbooks and all airworthiness directives and mandatory service bulletins in compliance. If there's a damage history, logs are missing, inspections are needed, or something's broken, then thousands can be deducted. In other words, the airplane can't need much more than a wash.

The verdict

The best buys lie in the 1974 to 1985 model years, where prices hover in the $35,000 to $55,000 price range. The 150-hp Warriors, which routinely go for less than $40,000, may be the most attractive buys. Archers are for those with slightly fatter wallets and a need for a tad more performance, room, and useful load.

No matter which one you buy, even less-than-pristine airplanes benefit greatly from upgrades should it come time to sell, as ASF's Archer II demonstrates. That's the advantage of buying a used airplane that's still in production — if you fix it up, it'll look like a factory-fresh airplane with a price tag $100,000 higher than what you paid! The fact that these planes fly great is even more gravy.

E-mail the author at [email protected].

Airworthiness Directives — The Past Five Years

Warrior and Archer

AD 99-24-10. For airplanes with Precise Flight SVS III standby vacuum system. Revise operating limitations in pilot operating handbook. Inspect vacuum lines, fittings, and valves for wear and chafing.

AD 98-17-11. Affects airplanes with crankshafts repaired by Nelson Balancing Service of Bedford, Massachusetts. Remove, inspect, and make dimensional check of crankshaft journals. If necessary, rework journals or remove from service.

AD 97-15-11. Replace defective pistons pin with serviceable parts. Supersedes a previous AD.

AD 96-10-03. Inspect flap handle attach bolt. Repair if necessary.

AD 96-10-01 R1. To prevent landing-light seal from lodging in carburetor, install new landing-light support and seal assembly.

AD 96-09-10. To prevent oil pump failure, replace sintered iron oil pump impeller with hardened steel impeller.

AD 95-26-13. Inspect oil cooler hoses. Hoses shouldn't have oil soakage. Ensure at least a two-inch clearance between oil hose and exhaust stack.

Warrior

AD 99-26-05. Inspect and replace, if necessary, Facet induction air filters. Affects filters manufactured between January 1997 and September 1998, which have a history of cracking, splitting, and crumbling, and which could be ingested in the air induction system.

AD 98-01-06. Inspect Precision Airmotive Corp. carburetors with two-piece venturis to see if primary venturi is loose or missing. Replace two-piece venturi with one-piece venturi within 48 months.

AD 98-23-01. Replace flexible couplings to prevent failure of certain Parker Hannifin Airborne dry air pumps, conversion kits, or coupling kits.

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