Retractable

[Aussie Andy]

Hi all,

Planning to rent a/c on forthcoming trip to Australia and looking at choices between: PA28-181 Archer III, 115kt cruise, fixed pitch prop, fixed gear
PA28R-201 Arrow III, 130kt cruise, CS prop, retractable
The difference in the cost is unimportant as the difference in cruise speed just about takes care of the difference.

All things being equal, I'd like to rent the Arrow. I am already familiar with CS Props from the P28B Dakota I fly now, but have no experience of retractable.

So my question is: am I right to presume its pretty straightforward to convert to retractable, and that if this rental is the first time I fly a retractable type, am I right to anticpate the conversion to take no more than say 1/2 hours worth of circuits?

Cheers all,

[sennadog]

Aussie Andy , whilst I applaud your commitment to Private Flying I think you ought to consider either BA or Qantas as it's going to take you an very long time to get there otherwise. On that basis I'd probably go for the PA28R-201 Arrow III as the extra 15 Knots will come in handy!

[Aussie Andy]

Hardy ha ha! :rolleyes: I will be renting the aircraft in Australia, d'oh! :)

[sennadog]

Sorry mate, couldn't resist! I had visions of you banging around the Himalayas, getting into IMC and contacting Nepalese ATC for a QDM fix.:D

[Aussie Andy]

no need - "visual with Mt Everest" ;)

[Lowtimer]

Aussie Andy,

I'd suggest trying to arrange a familiarisation trip in the Arrow somewhere in the UK before you use up too much valuable holiday time. Having around 60-odd hours of Warrior and Archer II / III under my belt, a couple of weeks ago I checked out on the Arrow III. Like you I had some CS prop experience, but none with disappearing wheels. It took me two flights totalling about 1 hr 40 mins. The first flight involved climbing a goodly distance from the ground and the crowded circuit to do 10-15 minutes of upper air work getting familiar with the U/C control and the emergency gear lowering procedure, the noise of the gear horn etc., followed by half a dozen mixed circuits. After a tea break we went for another 40 mins in the circuit, on one of which he pulled the U/C circuit breaker so that I had to do the emergency gear lowering drill on the downwind leg. After that he was happy with me and signed me off.

I felt the 1 hr 40 was time well spent, to be honest. It's partly getting the right habits into your head, and partially some minor handling differences. The Arrow III sits noticeably higher on the main gear than the Archer, and it does have to be held off slightly higher if you want to contact the ground prettily. Also, you notice the higher wing loading, and it's a fair bit heavier in pitch in the round-out than the Archer, and I noticed if you have the throttle fully closed it's possible to run out of up-elevator with two biggish blokes in the front and no-one in the back. A trickle of power in the round-out helps you get the tail down. (NB this is compared with the other )-320 and 360 powered models, I do not have experience of the 540-powerd Dakota, so your experience may vary from mine in this regard).

[stiknruda]

Whichever retrac you chose, an hour of circuits would be plenty BUT to do the aeroplane justice and to safeguard yourself and pax it is essential to fully and properly understand how the gear retracts and extends and practice at least one emergency extension in the circuit.

I learnt this to my cost years ago - did my initial retrac training on a Mooney then did a proper full conversion to a Seneca. A hundred Seneca hours later I started to fly a Chieftain after a fairly comprehensive brief. A few months later whilst in the aeroplane on my own I had to pump the Chieftain gear down - no sweat, if I could not remember exactly what to do the instructions were under the emergency handle cover.

However, the 32 odd strokes that it required to get the gear down and locked proved somewhat problematic - as I pumped I couldn't see out the front, when I paused to look out the pump lost miniscule pressure so it became harder work! Had I done this 2 up as part of a trg programme I would have known what to expect and not started to worry circa the 20th pump that it was not working at all!


Stik

[Aussie Andy]

Lowtimer - cheers mate. As it happens, I'll have to spend a couple of hours dual check in Sydney anyway because they have odd-ball airspace (called "GAAP") that I will need to be famil'd with, so I anticipate needing a good couple of hours worth of general handling and local famil. anyway.

I am more concerned about load carrying capabilities though - a mate has told me offline that I need to check this as the Arrow may have less load carrying capabilities due to the weight of the gear... which would defeat the purpose of getting something bigger than a Warrior in the first place!

stiknruda - your comments noted and appreciated!

[Lowtimer]

Andy,

You have a point about useful load. Obviously they vary according to equipment fit and age, but according to the Piper web site, http://www.newpiper.com , the standard useful load of a Warrior is 907 lbs/411 kg, and of an Arrow 960 lbs/435 kg. Not much difference at all. You can sure feel the difference in the all-up weight, though!

Another significant difference, which I forgot to mention before, is that the Arrow has much bigger tanks than the Warrior / Archer. So if you fill 'em up, you're in two-seater territory. However, you don't need to fill them all the way, and if you're flying any distance I suspect a properly leaned 200 hp Arrow with the revs back, gear up and a fairly modest MP setting is probably using less fuel per mile than a 160 hp Warrior trundling along at a higher throttle setting with fixed prop and gear.

Personally I like the 180 hp Archer II best of all the PA-28 family. Usually lighter than an Archer III, and doesn't have those flush-fitting fuel caps that seem to let the water in. But I wouldn't mind a go in a 235 hp Dakota some time, it sounds like fun.

[Aussie Andy]

Thanks Lowtimer... and the Archer 861 lbs/391 kg...

So according to this, I'm better off on the Arrow at 960lbs than with either Archer or Warrior. Presumably this is due to the bigger donk in the Arrow. I'm going to see if I can get the actual W&B sheets for each aircraft from Sydney overnight.

Cheers!

[GRP]

I own an Arrow IV (the T-Tail one) having trained on Warriors.

Some things possibly worth mentioning to look out for in an Arrow to avoid unnecessary panic - mostly common to all Piper retractables I am told (and often not mentioned by instructors!):

Gear unsafe light coming on in-flight (as opposed to not going off on retract). This is not a great problem - if you don't like it, slow down a bit and cycle the gear and it should go out. If it does come on it is probably caused by the gear sagging slightly after some time or having been shaken down a little by turbulence. There are lengthy discussions about this on the piper owners' club forum (www.piperowner.org).

Lack of any green lights on gear extension - the panel lights are probably on. If the panel lights are on then you will not be able to see the gear lights in daylight - period! Watch out for instructors who like to flick the panel lights on while you're not looking!!! At night by the way they are perfectly clear.

One light not coming on on gear extension. Don't panic yet! Place a finger on each light and press it. Quite often one will have joggled loose. If this doesn't work - take out the one that is not lit, then take out one of the lit ones and put it where the unlit one was. If it lights up.... all is well! Otherwise.... land gently somewhere that is open so that they have somebody around to remove the aircraft from the runway! A gear up landing is unlikely to hurt you if you can avoid panicking, but you will require assistance at that point! Incidentally, I read somewhere that a tower flypast is just a waste of time! What are you going to do when that one light is out and the guy says it looks like the wheel is down?? Is he sure of that??? Aren't you going to land as though you expect it to collapse anyway??

None of the above are particularly common by the way - but they do happen and can give you quite a start! I've had them all happen once or twice in about 100 hours in the Arrow.

On the large tank thing.... I have the 77 USG tanks. If you fill them up and put two fairly normal size people in the front, then your C of G will probably be forward of the limit. Given that the Arrow is already fairly hefty to flare, trying to land in this condition will probably bring the nose down quite hard, although keeping power on all the way to the ground can reduce this to manageable proportions.

I've not flown one of the straight tail Arrows so I don't know how they differ. The T-Tail though does not glide terribly well with the gear down so it's worth doing a few glide approaches with an instructor. My first two attempts were woefully short of the runway!

A particularly good power setting I find by the way seems to be to select 2100 RPM and then whatever MP you need at your height to give you 65% power. The fuel flow drops right down but the speed will only drop to about 120 knots - on mine at least. It's quite quiet at this setting as well.

[Keef]

All good stuff, especially from GRP - except that the Arrow III doesn't have the "press or swap" gear lights of the Arrow IV (well, ours doesn't). The panel lamps trick is a regular - if you get no greens, look to see if the big red "gear unsafe" light is on. If it's not, tell the instructor to turn off the pesky panel lights and quit playing games.

Generic Arrows have more load-carrying capacity than generic -180s etc, although you'll need to check the W&B sheet for the one you fly. Ours is 1755 lbs empty, 2750 lbs MTWA; I suspect that since we had the new radio fitted we may have over 1000 lbs real payload capacity. Reweighing deferred till we have the paint job done.

BUT you will be lucky to get 130 knots cruise out of one. That's what the book says, but ours usually trues out at something around 125.

I'd reckon on a couple of hours conversion, if you get a meticulous CFI. There isn't much to it in theory, especially if you're used to CS props already, but it's nice to do all the emergency extension, uplock and when to turn it on/off, etc in comfort.

The Arrow III usually (maybe always, I dunno) has the larger (72USG/60IG) tanks, so you can make the trade-off between payload and range. Ours, with full tanks, will fly a lot further than my body can handle comfortably (even with the ANR headset). Full fuel is 462 lbs which makes quite a dent in that payload...

[Final 3 Greens]

Andy

I've flown a lot of hours in Archers and Arrows.

You might find that the Arrow disappoints after a well sorted Archer, as pulling back the MP and RPM at 300' or so results in a climb performance inferior to the Archer.

Interestingly, in the States I flew both over some high terrain and preferred to take the Archers.

Having said that, the Arrow is a good conversion machine to retracts, especially if you have lots of Pa28 time.

Minor point, but the straight tails tend to pitch on gear cycling whereas the T tails do not.

[GRP]

Hi Keef,

Agree about the speed. Mine will generally sit at 125 IAS unless I play around with the trim carefully at which point I can get it to sit close to 130 but the first bump will knock it back to 125.

Interesting point about the climb performance. My little 'Piper Indians' book tells me that an Archer II climbs at 790 fpm and an Arrow III or IV at 830 fpm. Doesn't say under which conditions but I would guess that's best rate at max weight. I usually climb at 100-105 knots after about 1000 feet which gives me about 5-600 fpm but gets me there a bit quicker and gives a better forward view.

There is an article on AVWEB somewhere saying that you should not reduce MP in the climb but simply reduce prop speed. The reasoning behind this is that there is an additional slosh of fuel thrown in at absolute full throttle which helps to keep the engine cool. I've not tried this so if anybody has any thoughts on it I'd be interested to hear them!

[411A]

GRP

Continental engines generally (based on throttle position), not with Lycoming engines, except a few turbo models.

[Ace Rimmer]

Andy
The other thing about Arrers is the automatic gear extension - I know they took this out of later versions, after a lawsuit in the the States I dunno exactly when... I'm pretty sure it was before the IV probably half way through the III (first time around) production run but I could be wrong. (Keef? GRP?) So in an engine failure type situation first task is to engage the override (the gear will extend about 10kts above best glide otherwise) Concur with the comments about the gear unsafe light cycling the gear will (in my experience) fix the problem. Also on the the comments about the flare just a nadge of power helps enormously although I suspect this would be less of benefit on the T tail - the stabulator being avbove the prop wash (dunno for sure cause I've never flown a IV). Of course too much and you'll use miles of runway... trial and error will sort that out but that's part of the fun of a new type I guess

For longer XCs I reckon you'll be better off with the Arrer because of the higher wing loading you'll find it more stable in cruise and therefore less hassle.
Bottom line though if you've spent a lot of time in Archers and Warriors you'll find the Arrer an easy transition

[Final 3 Greens]

GRP

The Indians book may be quoting full power on both a/c, whereas climb power for the Archer is full throttle (therefore full power) and the Arrow is 25/2500, less than full power - so not eggs and eggs.

I agree that 500fpm is about right for the Arrow at climb power and the Archer at the same weight will give about 800fpm - but full tanks on the Archer (50 US gals) and my family, is less than gross.

Also, if you find a turbo Arrow with the continental engine, the climb rate is better, especially if the density altitude is high.

[GRP]

The auto gear extension was on the IV but at least on mine is disabled in compliance with an SB from Piper. I think I'm better off without it!

[Aussie Andy]

Wow everyone - thanks! I have learned a lot from all these great responses. Decision is made to rent the Arrow instead of the Archer... now one of the factors is that I think it will be good to have an additional conversion under my belt - sounds more interesting than I had anticipated!

Pprune rules! :)

[pondlife]

Hi Andy, me again,

I've never flown an Arrow myself but I wouldn't imagine you'll have any trouble with it.
Two things your checking instructor and you will have to agree that you've got covered are the making sure that you don't forget to operate the gear (and how to do it of course), and the emergency gear procedure.
Neither will be particularly onerous but you'll both need to be very sure that you're not going to miss the required check items and land gear up one day.
I would suggest that you read up how the gear works and the emergency procedures before you go - that should keep your circuit checkout time to a minimum.

From what I understand about the Arrow, you're going to be pretty disapointed with it's performance after the Dakota.

[Aussie Andy]

pondlife G'day mate ;)

Yeah cheers, thanks - I suppose there'll be a book on the "Arrer" from AFE or someone?

Hey, maybe I should just take G-ODAK with me when John is not looking!! :p Makes me appreciate how lucky we are to have her... notwithstanding ... no, I won't start!

[A and C]

After the dak the arrow will not be a problem as long as you remember to put the gear down.

Some years back having seen some of the problems that people had with the retraction system on small pipers and more importantly the problems that people had getting the gear back down I got together with the Chief engineers of BAFC , ATS , WAC and penned a thing for GASIL about the subject.

I cant for the life of me remember when they published it but it might be worth you having a look at it if you can find it.

[Keef]

It's a bit of a pain, really. Unless the pin has been removed, you can pull up the "override" knob and push in the pin to lock it up.

Otherwise, the pesky gear will drop as soon as you go below the limiting speed, and as soon as the engine fails.

We "lost" our first Arrow when the engine went BANG over the Solent, and the gear dropped immediately. P1 didn't realise (bit preoccupied with other things) and didn't quite make it to shore. With the gear up, he would have done.

There are all sorts of strange requirements which basically mean you can't change what's there.

If you lock the override "up", then the gear will retract when you tell it to on takeoff. Otherwise it'll stay down (or half-down) while you slog up to altitude.

Our "crossing water" check includes "gear override up and locked".

[Final 3 Greens]

ACE

The auto gear extend is certainly on the 1979 non turbo IV that sometimes fly.

Agree with Keef - best thing to do IMHO is to override it all the time - I've known it decline to retract the gear climbing out at gross on a hot day - not funny when you want to accelerate!

[Ace Rimmer]

Keef
Good call think I'll add that to my overwater proceedure

[Aussie Andy]

Looked up the aircraft I'm going to rent on the Australian Register (http://www.casa.gov.au/casadata/register/index.htm) and discovered they are 1989 Arrow III. Have sent off to Surecheck for POH and Checklist. Should I expect auto-gear to be installed in this vintage or not?

[Keef]

Archer III has gear down and welded. No worries there.

Crosscheck the Surecheck list against the aircraft POH afore ye fly. The one I got for the Arrer includes bits that don't work such as "Fuel on BOTH". There's OFF, LEFT, and RIGHT on an Arrow III. No BOTH.

And it misses out a few things in the POH...

They might have fixed it in the meantime - I've not bought another or checked the latest ones - but they didn't acknowledge my "Notification of error".

[A and C]

You could also check out the back issues of the club magazine for the story Mrs A and C wrote about her flying trip down under.

[Aussie Andy]

Keef - sorry typed Archer but meant Arrow. Have edited it now.

A and C - I think I have that article, cheers.