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Piper PA 28 Warrior

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Photos

Piper PA-28RT-201 Cherokee Arrow IV with its distinctive "T" tail

Flight Lesson in Piper Video

Full Slip Landing Piper Warrior Video

Piper Warrior III Landing Video

The Piper Warrior is part of the Piper Cherokee family of light aircraft designed for flight training, air taxi and personal use, built by Piper Aircraft.

All members of the PA-28 family are all-metal, unpressurized, single-engine piston-powered airplanes with low-mounted wings and tricycle landing gear. All PA-28 aircraft have a single door on the co-pilot side, which is entered by stepping on the wing.

The first PA-28 received its type certificate from the FAA in 1960 and the series remains in production in 2009. Current models are the Arrow and Warrior III. The Archer was discontinued in 2009, but with investment from new Piper owners Imprimis, will be revived in 2010.

Competition for the PA-28 series include the Cessna 172, the Grumman American AA-5 series and the Beechcraft Musketeer.

Piper has created variations within the Cherokee family by installing engines ranging from 140 to 300 hp (105-220 kW), providing turbocharging, offering fixed or retractable landing gear, fixed-pitch or constant speed propellers, and stretching the fuselage to accommodate 6 people. The larger, six-seat variant of the PA-28 is generally the PA-32; earlier versions were known as the "Cherokee Six," and a PA-32 version is still in production today under the model name Saratoga.

Development

PA-28 Cherokee

The original Cherokees were the Cherokee 150 and Cherokee 160 (PA-28-150 and PA-28-160), which started production in 1961 (unless otherwise mentioned, the model number always refers to horsepower).

In 1964, the company filled in the bottom end of the line with the Cherokee 140 (PA-28-140), which was designed for training and initially shipped with only two seats. One source of confusion is the fact that the PA-28-140 engine was slightly modified shortly after its introduction to produce 150 horsepower (112 kW), but kept the -140 name.

In 1967 Piper removed the Cherokee 150 and Cherokee 160 from production.

Piper reintroduced the Cherokee 150 in 1974, renaming it the ''Cherokee Warrior'' (PA-28-151) and giving it the Archer's stretched body and a new, semi-tapered wing.

In 1978, Piper upgraded the Warrior to 160 horsepower (119 kW) PA-28-161, changing its name to ''Cherokee Warrior II''. This aircraft had slightly improved aerodynamic wheel fairings. Later models of the Warrior II, manufactured after July 1982, incorporate a gross weight increase to 2,440 pounds, giving a useful load over 900 pounds. This same aircraft, now available with a glass cockpit, is available as the Warrior III, and is marketed as a training aircraft.

Design

Wing

Originally, all Cherokees had a constant-chord rectangular planform wing, popularly called the ''Hershey Bar '' wing because of its resemblance to the convex, rectangular chocolate bar.

Beginning with the Warrior in 1974, Piper switched to a tapered wing with the NACA 652-415 profile and a wingspan. Both Cherokee wing variants have an angled wing root; i.e., the wing leading edge is swept forward as it nears the fuselage body, rather than meeting the body at a perpendicular angle.

The documented takeoff distance, cruise speed, and landing distance of Cherokees of the same horsepower with different wing types is very similar and some of the differences that do exist in later taper-wing models can be attributed to better fairings and seals rather than the different wing design. The Hershey Bar wing design is not markedly inferior to the tapered design, and in some ways is quite advantageous. As Piper Cherokee designer John Thorp says: "Tapered wings tend to stall outboard, reducing aileron effectiveness and increasing the likelihood of a rolloff into a spin."

As Peter Garrison further explains: "To prevent tip stall, designers have resorted to providing the outboard portions of tapered wings with more cambered airfoil sections, drooped or enlarged leading edges, fixed or automatic leading edge slots or slats, and, most commonly, wing twist or "washout." The trouble with these fixes is that they all increase the drag, canceling whatever benefit the tapered wing was supposed to deliver in the first place."

Flight controls

For the Cherokee family Piper used their traditional flight control configuration. The horizontal tail is a stabilator with an anti-servo tab (sometimes termed an anti-balance tab). The anti-servo tab moves in the same direction of the stabilator movement, making pitch control "heavier" as the stabilator moves out of the trimmed position. Flaps can extend up to 40º, but are considerably smaller, and arguably less effective, than the flaps on a Cessna 172. Normally, 25º flaps are used for a short- or soft-field takeoff. The ailerons, flaps, stabilator, and stabilator trim are all controlled using cables and pulleys.

In the cockpit, all Cherokees use control yokes rather than sticks, together with rudder pedals. The pilot operates the flaps manually using a Johnson bar located between the front seats: for zero degrees the lever is flat against the floor and is pulled up to select the detent positions of 10°, 25° and 40°.

Older Cherokees use an overhead crank for stabilator trim (correctly called an anti servo-tab), while later ones use a trim wheel on the floor between the front seats, immediately behind the flap bar.

All Cherokees have a brake lever under the pilot side of the instrument panel. Differential toe brakes on the rudder pedals were an optional add-on for earlier Cherokees, and became standard with later models.

Some earlier Cherokees used control knobs for the throttle, mixture, and propeller advance (where applicable), while later Cherokees use a collection of two or three control levers in a throttle quadrant.

Cherokees normally include a rudder trim knob, which actually controls a set of springs acting on the rudder pedals rather than an external trim tab on the rudder — in other words, the surface is trimmed by control tension rather than aerodynamically.

Variants

PA-28-150 Cherokee

Four place, fixed landing gear landplane, Lycoming O-320-A2B or O-320-E2A engine of, gross weight. First certified on 2 June 1961.

PA-28-151 Cherokee Warrior

Four place, fixed landing gear landplane, Lycoming O-320-E3D engine of, gross weight. First certified on 9 August 1973. Changes from the PA-28-150 include a tapered wing.

PA-28-160 Cherokee

Four place, fixed landing gear landplane, Lycoming O-320-B2B or O-320-D2A engine of, gross weight. First certified on 31 October 1960.

PA-28-161 Warrior II

Four place, fixed landing gear landplane, Lycoming O-320-D3G or O-320-D2A engine of, gross weight. First certified on 2 November 1976. Changes from the PA-28-160 include a tapered wing. Certified on 1 July 1982 for gross weight of.

PA-28-161 Warrior III

Four place, fixed landing gear landplane, Lycoming O-320-D3G engine of, gross weight. First certified on 1 July 1994.

PA-28S-160 Cherokee

Four place, fixed landing gear seaplane, Lycoming O-320-D2A engine of, gross weight. First certified on 25 February 1963.

PA-28S-180 Cherokee

Four place, fixed landing gear seaplane, Lycoming O-360-A3A or O-360-A4A engine of, gross weight. First certified on 10 May 1963.