Piper Big Orders for Trainers

Piper has really been pushing hard in the training market the last few years. I wonder what they have been doing ( other than massive price incentives) to bring in so much business. Seems like for now the Archer is the top selling new trainer ( although the 172 is by far the most common).

Didn't Piper even reintroduce the Warrior are 2 years ago because a flight school wanted like 20 of them?

Ultimately, this is good for the GA fleet when 5 to 10 years down the line when some of these planes get sold off to private pilots. Always nice to see new stuff in the overall GA fleet.

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My first flight was in a piper 140, always good to see the company doing well
 
Still in almost 6 years of flying I've never flown in a low wing airplane. I would like to but have not had the opportunity. I am glad that the GA market is going strong and honestly I don't blame these flight schools for going with piper. Cessna has proved themselves so far out of any market with their new 172's it's absurd. No question though, if you look at trade a plane and other sites, Cessna's 172 resale prices are always higher than Cherokees.
 
jspilot said:
Still in almost 6 years of flying I've never flown in a low wing airplane. I would like to but have not had the opportunity. I am glad that the GA market is going strong and honestly I don't blame these flight schools for going with piper. Cessna has proved themselves so far out of any market with their new 172's it's absurd. No question though, if you look at trade a plane and other sites, Cessna's 172 resale prices are always higher than Cherokees.
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I am not sure how you think the 172 is any more ridiculously priced than an Archer is. What I am wondering is how either of them is going to compete with the Technam and the C4 coming to market and seeming to hit that $250 k price point. It is still high, but still undercuts Cessna and Piper.

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drotto said:
I am not sure how you think the 172 is any more ridiculously priced than an Archer is. What I am wondering is how either of them is going to compete with the Technam and the C4 coming to market and seeming to hit that $250 k price point. It is still high, but still undercuts Cessna and Piper.

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https://www.controller.com/listings/aircraft/for-sale/20483283/2018-cessna-172s-skyhawk-sp

http://www.muncieaviation.com/archer

The 172 is easily 5,000 dollars more for the exact same set up. Multiply that by the amount of orders these schools are making and the cost savings begins to be pretty big and that's before any discounts for such large orders have been discussed.

Both of these planes are absurdly expensive but Cessna is more-- and I'm a Cessna fan!
 
drotto said:
I am not sure how you think the 172 is any more ridiculously priced than an Archer is. What I am wondering is how either of them is going to compete with the Technam and the C4 coming to market and seeming to hit that $250 k price point. It is still high, but still undercuts Cessna and Piper.

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I seriously doubt the C4 can hit the $250,000 price point. That was the number they started with in 2011, with deliveries starting in a wildly optimistic 2013. Like so many other developers they appear to have had no clue the time & $ it takes to get through the FAA certication process. Still waiting...
 
GRG55 said:
I seriously doubt the C4 can hit the $250,000 price point. That was the number they started with in 2011, with deliveries starting in a wildly optimistic 2013. Like so many other developers they appear to have had no clue the time & $ it takes to get through the FAA certication process. Still waiting...
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I am fairly sure the new technam is $345 K, so it way undercuts Cessna and Piper. Not the $250 but better.
 
I wish someone would buy a boat load of those Tecnam 2010s. That's a nice airplane: 140+ kts, G1000, automotive-style amenities and 215 hp w/ variable pitch prop. I wonder if they take trades and a 75 year payment plan?
 
iflyvfr said:
I wish someone would buy a boat load of those Tecnam 2010s. That's a nice airplane: 140+ kts, G1000, automotive-style amenities and 215 hp w/ variable pitch prop. I wonder if they take trades and a 75 year payment plan?
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I agree. They are giving you about the performance of a 182, at a cost that undercuts the 172 by around a $100 K (for the base model).

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iflyvfr said:
I wish someone would buy a boat load of those Tecnam 2010s. That's a nice airplane: 140+ kts, G1000, automotive-style amenities and 215 hp w/ variable pitch prop. I wonder if they take trades and a 75 year payment plan?
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Not sure they’re built tough enough for continuous student abuse but more likely they don’t even bid because they can’t crank them out fast enough.
 
denverpilot said:
Not sure they’re built tough enough for continuous student abuse but more likely they don’t even bid because they can’t crank them out fast enough.
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Then why advertise them as a trainer in the 180 hp, model? I think they can take the abuse, just making them in numbers and getting them to the US is an issue.

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drotto said:
I agree. They are giving you about the performance of a 182, at a cost that undercuts the 172 by around a $100 K (for the base model).

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I'm just going by the information in the links on this thread, including your post #22. $379k (172) minus $345k (Tecnam) is not $100,000 difference.

The Tecnam P2010 is a nice looking plane. Would have been even nicer if they had managed to ditch the wing struts, a la Cardinal.
 
denverpilot said:
Not sure they’re built tough enough for continuous student abuse but more likely they don’t even bid because they can’t crank them out fast enough.
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None of the European stuff seems as robust as the Wichita/Vero Beach planes. There's three flight training units at our field. The Diamond DA-20s were replaced with 172s at one of them because they were broken all the time, mostly small stuff like repeated latch mechanism failures. Until one day the rear window on one of them developed a crack. The window is part of the structure. The plane was laid up two months as Diamond had to develop a repair procedure first.

At another FTU the Tecnam twins kept eating Rotax engines. Once they had replaced 5 of 6 engines in the fleet they replaced the planes with Senecas, just like everyone else was using.

At the moment there's more than two dozen 172s between the three schools, six Seneca IIs, one 182, one Citabria and one Cirrus SR-20.
 
GRG55 said:
None of the European stuff seems as robust as the Wichita/Vero Beach planes. There's three flight training units at our field. The Diamond DA-20s were replaced with 172s at one of them because they were broken all the time, mostly small stuff like repeated latch mechanism failures. Until one day the rear window on one of them developed a crack. The window is part of the structure. The plane was laid up two months as Diamond had to develop a repair procedure first.

At another FTU the Tecnam twins kept eating Rotax engines. Once they had replaced 5 of 6 engines in the fleet they replaced the planes with Senecas, just like everyone else was using.

At the moment there's more than two dozen 172s between the three schools, six Seneca IIs, one 182, one Citabria and one Cirrus SR-20.
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I am not going to deny that both the PA28 and the 172 are planes that have proven they can take a beating over the last 50 years.
 
drotto said:
I am not going to deny that both the PA28 and the 172 are planes that have proven they can take a beating over the last 50 years.
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And I'm not going to deny that if we are going to continue to attract young people to aviation we need have airplanes that are attractive, affordable, fun to fly, and have a connection to our technology driven world.

The Tecnam P2010 is a great looking airplane (for a high wing ;) ). But I really wish it had a cantilever wing.
 
GRG55 said:
And I'm not going to deny that if we are going to continue to attract young people to aviation we need have airplanes that are attractive, affordable, fun to fly, and have a connection to our technology driven world.

The Tecnam P2010 is a great looking airplane (for a high wing ;) ). But I really wish it had a cantilever wing.
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The part about the airplane world is due to regulations and costs, GA planes have never really gotten the opportunity to be "sexy". What I mean by that is cars, motorcycles, even boats, are constantly chaning their looks not because technology dictates it, but because the look can afford to evolve with the current style trends. When you sell thousand or even hundreds of thousands of a model per year, especially cars, become to common and people get tired of them. Due to the profit margins, makers can afford to retool the look, if in reality little else is changed.

But this evolution of style ( and yes usually tech at the same time) keeps models relevant and fresh. In addition, you have much more flexibility to give different designs for different demographics. Due to the costs, regulations, and limited demand, you just can't do that with planes. So instead of selling based partially on emotion, it is all based on practicality. What plane fits my mission and is in my price range. That is basically it.

Practicality does not sell to younger people. Who generally make a larger percentage of their decisions on emotion. Hard to sell them on something that is old, looks old, but works, when they look for a model that stirs emotions and it $500 K or more for new and on trend. At which point they give up and say it is only for rich people.

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GRG55 said:
And I'm not going to deny that if we are going to continue to attract young people to aviation we need have airplanes that are attractive, affordable, fun to fly, and have a connection to our technology driven world.

The Tecnam P2010 is a great looking airplane (for a high wing ;) ). But I really wish it had a cantilever wing.
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Honestly I’ll disagree here. I don’t think the kids give a rats behind about the airplane’s attractiveness or whatever. They don’t want it dirty but think back to when you were that age. Anyone who could even own an airplane was a giant to you.

When I was learning to fly at 19 all I cared about was the rental price. I learned over the years to rent from places that were a little above the bottom dollar because the garbage at the cheap place was always broken. But I still was amazed anybody could afford to own any of those things.

Style and affordability and all that really only factors into the buyers of the airplanes, and that’s middle aged pilots and older. Kids aren’t buying them. Hell, everything in the panel of that clapped out 150 I soloed in was magical to me. I didn’t know **** about aviation. I trusted a CFI I had met to not let me rent or fly anything dangerous, but other than that, if I could save up the money from my three jobs to go flying with him, I went. I was VERY practical back then. Not because I didn’t like those shiny airplanes across the ramp or ogle them regularly, but because that was light years away from my 20-something budget.

Now if you say these things need to be reasonably stylish for the soccer mom or dad to buy one or God forbid, lease it back to a club so kids can fly it as a rental... yeah. That makes a little sense. Of course if they’ve been flying a while they’ll understand (and the kids sure as hell won’t) that a freaking GPS costs over $10,000 in airplanes.

That’s one problem with the “connected world” desire if people are addicted to tech. Enormous price gouging due to a boutique marketplace and FAA certification of what’s a bog standard COTS GPS chipset these days.

But even at that, most middle aged owners would happily let youngsters beat uo their pride and joy if they could make something doing it. The ROI on airplanes is God-awful.

Back when I was learning to fly, people were still taking advantage of the taxation benefits of capital spending that were available back then. Want a middle aged person to spend stupid amounts of money? Give them a tax break. They’re in their prime earnings years. They get a tax break they’ll think the airplane on leaseback is a good investment. It’s not. But it’ll feel better than the usual bending over without lube by IRS.

Tecnam, Sport Cruiser/Piper Sport, Skycatcher... this “appeal to the youngsters” thing has already been tried and failed. Because young people don’t buy airplanes.

Build something rugged that an owner knows is built stout enough to survive a leaseback and still be flyable when their time to fly it comes around on the schedule and figure out a way for them to make money on it, even if it’s not much or break-even, and you’ll have an entire new fleet of them plying the skies with all sorts of wide eyed youngsters renting them for whatever the rental rates are.

Telling a youngster that their dream JUST to get to the Private rating will run them $10,000 is like telling a homeless person that the tract houses up the road are only $300,000. So far out of their league it doesn’t even register.

Tell them it rents for less than $100/hr? They’re going to show up in droves.

Airplanes have never been “affordable”. But if you want the fleet refreshed you have to get guys like me buying something other than a 40 year old 182 and that new thing has to perform as well.

I don’t see the young people who want to fly caring much about affordability, it’s already 20 years too soon in their earning power to buy airplanes. They like flashy glass ships, but if the rental sheet says the glass ship is $300/hr, and the venerable old but well maintained Skyhawk is $150, we already know which they’ll be renting.

And frankly, at the Private pilot level, their iPad will provide all the techno gadgetry they long for, even in a steam gauge airplane. Instrument they’ll want an IFR GPS and will be amazed anybody spends $20,000 retrofitting a panel for IFR GPS and ADS-B... they live in a world where that has always been available for free on their cell phone.

What the future training market needs is something as tough as a Skyhawk or PA28 for far less than half a million bucks and some sort of business incentive to own stuff like that and share it with others via rentals. Preferably tax breaks. Big ones.

So the really hard up kids, what do they do? If they want to fly and don’t think they’ll survive or find three jobs like I did... they’re going to take the “easy” path and take out a student loan for $150,000 and hand it to UND or ER or one of those shops. Way easier lifestyle than spending $25K they had to earn via jobs in their 20s of disposable income.

Of course the entrepreneur types will figure out how to buy a beater 150/152 and go fly the holy hell out of it until they’re ready for their twin ride, sell it, and buy a mid or high time Twinkie and fly the hell out of that, sell it and grab a pipeline or aerial mapping job, all completely broke and happy to be flying, until they hit 1200-1500 hours and then finally apply for a job flying on someone else’s dime. You couldn’t tempt that pilot with even the best made new trainer. They want hours and they want them yesterday.

What you can tempt young pilots with is really good instruction in non-constantly-broken airplanes prior to their time building phase.

Mommie and Daddie want the Lexus and the Cirrus Pilot Center “experience”. Kids just want to fly.

By the way, the best aircraft that meet your affordable, has some tech, and looks great missions are the modern glider fleet. Europe exports some beautiful aircraft to us that meet those “requirements”. And soaring is a very inexpensive way to build solid stick and rudder skills for young folks.

The problem is keeping the beefy towplanes maintained and flying and not wrecking them. The busy local glider club has totaled two Pawnees and the commercial club lost one to the midair with the Cirrus. (Ironically for this post...) You gotta have a beefy towplane to play glider up here at our altitudes. Some gliders can do okay behind a 182 in the right conditions... but bigger heavier ships are going to need a bigger workhorse up front.

Again the youngster isn’t going to care what’s towing them. They’re going to ask how much $ per 1000’ of tow.
 
The Archer is a way superior plane to the 172, in every way except maybe taking aerial photos. The Warrior to 172 is a better comparison, and the Warrior burns like 3-4 GPH less. It isn't surprising that Piper is winning orders lately, especially seeing that they can package Archers/Arrows/Seminoles into a neat little package for larger flight schools.

drotto said:
Piper has really been pushing hard in the training market the last few years. I wonder what they have been doing ( other than massive price incentives) to bring in so much business. Seems like for now the Archer is the top selling new trainer ( although the 172 is by far the most common).

Didn't Piper even reintroduce the Warrior are 2 years ago because a flight school wanted like 20 of them?

Ultimately, this is good for the GA fleet when 5 to 10 years down the line when some of these planes get sold off to private pilots. Always nice to see new stuff in the overall GA fleet.

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I know that discontinuing the Warrior III is what shifted UND to the 172, but now UND realized their error and also made a big Archer order to replace the inferior Cessna. Seems like basically all the big schools are shifting to Piper.

denverpilot said:
Not sure they’re built tough enough for continuous student abuse but more likely they don’t even bid because they can’t crank them out fast enough.
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Hey, DA-40s are used for training all the time, and they are definitely too touchy and fragile for the pounding they take.
 
N1120A said:
Hey, DA-40s are used for training all the time, and they are definitely too touchy and fragile for the pounding they take.
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No argument there. Not many airplanes survive the training environment better off than they went into it.
 
denverpilot said:
No argument there. Not many airplanes survive the training environment better off than they went into it.
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Eh, I think that all comes down to how well the school/owner maintains the plane. I wouldn't hesitate to take an Archer or Arrow that came out of the UND program.
 
N1120A said:
Eh, I think that all comes down to how well the school/owner maintains the plane. I wouldn't hesitate to take an Archer or Arrow that came out of the UND program.
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To each their own. Businesses don’t sell capital assets out of fleets until they’ve wrung every bit of value out of them unless they leased them.

Plenty of better options out there than tired fleet dogs.
 
N1120A said:
Eh, I think that all comes down to how well the school/owner maintains the plane. I wouldn't hesitate to take an Archer or Arrow that came out of the UND program.
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Well if you want some 172s we're selling a bunch as the most recent batch of Archers arrive in GFK over the next few months...
 
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