PA32-300. Am I a Cherokee or a Saratoga?

joycem137

joycem137

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Robin
Flew my 1976 PA-32-300 Piper Cherokee 6 into KHWD yesterday and had a new interaction with ATC in my 300 hours flying this thing over the past 2+ years. Normally, I call up as "Piper" 7008F, with no problem. When it matters, ATC has tended to ask, or if I'm doing flight following, I mention I'm a PA32-300. However, going into KHWD, I was assigned the shorter runway, 28R, which I get the sense they generally don't assign to "larger" planes like mine. After putting it down, the controller asked what type of aircraft I have, and I told him I'm a PA32-300, a Cherokee 6. He then made a frustrated noise and said "We're speaking different languages. Please identify yourself as a Saratoga in the future."

I've often thought about this. Controllers will sometimes just call me a Saratoga, sometimes a Piper, and sometimes a Cherokee. I'm not really sure what to call myself when addressing controllers.

Do any of y'all have any thoughts? Obviously, I'll identify myself as a Saratoga to the KHWD controller from here out, but was wondering if I should carry that onto other controllers?
 
In my experience ATC calls just about every SE Piper a 'Cherokee'
 
I would have thought stating PA32 was sufficient. Isn't the difference between a Cherokee 6 and a Satatoga essentially fixed or retractable? I know other variations exist with shades of grey confusing the PA32 line-up like the Lance.
 
that's weird that he would nitpick like that. I flew a pa32-300 that absolutely positively was not a saratoga, it was a t-tail lance. I wonder what saratogas were called before they existed.
 
joycem137 said:
Flew my 1976 PA-32-300 Piper Cherokee 6 into KHWD yesterday and had a new interaction with ATC in my 300 hours flying this thing over the past 2+ years. Normally, I call up as "Piper" 7008F, with no problem. When it matters, ATC has tended to ask, or if I'm doing flight following, I mention I'm a PA32-300. However, going into KHWD, I was assigned the shorter runway, 28R, which I get the sense they generally don't assign to "larger" planes like mine. After putting it down, the controller asked what type of aircraft I have, and I told him I'm a PA32-300, a Cherokee 6. He then made a frustrated noise and said "We're speaking different languages. Please identify yourself as a Saratoga in the future."

I've often thought about this. Controllers will sometimes just call me a Saratoga, sometimes a Piper, and sometimes a Cherokee. I'm not really sure what to call myself when addressing controllers.

Do any of y'all have any thoughts? Obviously, I'll identify myself as a Saratoga to the KHWD controller from here out, but was wondering if I should carry that onto other controllers?
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I would just say type PA32 and be done with it. Of course there was the flight I had from Fort Myers, across the Everglades, and up the coast to St Augustine where I was a Comanche, a Bonanza, a Twin Comanche, and a Cherokee. Not one controller passed the correct type on to the next one.
 
The bottom line is controllers don’t know all airplane types. Some do, but you can’t count on it. If you file, your ICAO type is in the flight plan. Otherwise just use a reasonable identifier.
 
It’s Piper’s fault for having different names for the same aircraft ID. :)

If a controller sees PA32 on the scope, Cherokee, Lance and Saratoga are all fair game. I always go with whatever they call themselves. If they say November I may default to Saratoga...seems to be more of them flying as 32’s than the others.
 
cowman said:
The bottom line is controllers don’t know all airplane types. Some do, but you can’t count on it. If you file, your ICAO type is in the flight plan. Otherwise just use a reasonable identifier.
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This. PA32 is good enough for me. If a retract, PA32 RETRACT. Then let them figure it out. And there is infact a cranky controller at HWD, you know, if your readback of every instruction is not exact he makes you say it again. Sounds like this guy. Don't take it personally!
 
To be clear, this isn't so much a question about what to file as, since I just file as a PA32-300... But rather what to say to tower or ground. In this case, I greeted tower with "Hayward Tower, Piper 7008F is over the freeway interchange at 3000 inbound for landing with Golf" and after I landed, he chastised me to call myself "Saratoga 7008F" when calling up for landing/takeoff in the future.

I got the sense he wouldn't have put me into the shorter runway had he known I was a PA32, even though it was 3100 feet and plenty of room. More than my home airport at KRHV even.
 
Ryanb said:
My opinion:

PA32 - Saratoga

PA28 - Cherokee
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I've seen other Cherokee Six pilots calling their bird a Saratoga, so I suppose this makes sense. It's quite similar to a Saratoga.
 
joycem137 said:
I've seen other Cherokee Six pilots calling their bird a Saratoga, so I suppose this makes sense. It's quite similar to a Saratoga.
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I fly a Lance but refer to myself as a Saratoga as its more widely recognized. Of course, then I get called a Seneca.
 
I own a 2006 PA-32-301XT Piper Cherokee 6XT. When asked, I just tell ATC it's a PA-32. Not sure that grumpy KHWD controller would have believed me! It's what Piper described to the FAA as a Saratoga II TC with fixed gear; they only made 51 of them. The previous owner used "Saratoga" in his calls, but my flight instructor razzed me when I first used it. "It's a Cherokee, not a Saratoga", he declared. It's slightly slower than a retractable gear Saratoga, but a bit faster than a Cherokee 300. My understanding is that ATC only wants to know your basic performance specs (speed, climb rate, etc) for their traffic separation needs. Thus far, I've never had ATC question me.
 
dfw11411 said:
I own a 2006 PA-32-301XT Piper Cherokee 6XT. When asked, I just tell ATC it's a PA-32. Not sure that grumpy KHWD controller would have believed me! It's what Piper described to the FAA as a Saratoga II TC with fixed gear; they only made 51 of them. The previous owner used "Saratoga" in his calls, but my flight instructor razzed me when I first used it. "It's a Cherokee, not a Saratoga", he declared. It's slightly slower than a retractable gear Saratoga, but a bit faster than a Cherokee 300. My understanding is that ATC only wants to know your basic performance specs (speed, climb rate, etc) for their traffic separation needs. Thus far, I've never had ATC question me.
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My first instructor on my bird has the same admonishment to me when I asked her how to call up. AND I've been flying it around 300 hours over the past two years with no complaints from ATC until yesterday. This confusion is why I generally just stick with "Piper 7008F" so I'm not calling it A Cherokee OR a Saratoga.
 
Radar Contact said:
It’s Piper’s fault for having different names for the same aircraft ID. :)

If a controller sees PA32 on the scope, Cherokee, Lance and Saratoga are all fair game. I always go with whatever they call themselves. If they say November I may default to Saratoga...seems to be more of them flying as 32’s than the others.
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Like the PA28?
Cherokee Cruiser
Cherokee
Cherokee Warrior
Warrior II
Warrior III
Archer
Archer II
Archer III
Dakota
Turbo Dakota
Cherokee Pathfinder

Pretty sure I saw a YT video of Christy Wong saying she refers to her Warrior as a Cherokee as "Warrior" would sometimes even confuse other pilots when they thought they were looking at a Cherokee in the pattern.
 
joycem137 said:
HAHA! I say if you pay for the whole runway, use the whole runway!:):):). (Though in this case, I was off at Delta)
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Huh -- then others with your airframe must be doing it enough to concern this controller. This is actually a private and handy shorthand that you now have available to you.

Initial call "Cherokee 7008F" is now code for "I am inbound and I will accept your short little Brazilian of a runway without incident because I am awesome sauce"

Initial call "Saratoga 7008F" is now code for "I am inbound but trying to finish my netflix show, please give me your 12,000 footer so I don't have to look up too much or dink with the throttle"

Initial call "Piper 7008F" is now code for "open the GUESS BOX, sucker, and see what you get! I might trash your whole sequencing and pee in your cheerios while drawing a mighty ADS-B wang over your Delta airspace!", which is what >I< would have thought it meant all along. :D
 
I used Saratoga for my Cherokee 6. I used Cherokee once when flying IFR with Miami Center and realized that I was being vectored out away from busy airspace. I then "ammended" my call sign to Saratoga and was able to go direct. I think he thought I was a slow training aircraft and didn't want to be bothered.

Even my lowly 6/260 trues out at 135kts. That's downhill with a tailwind for a Cherokee.
 
schmookeeg said:
Huh -- then others with your airframe must be doing it enough to concern this controller. This is actually a private and handy shorthand that you now have available to you.
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I am told there are some folks that fly there in a similar model that have some trouble with landing in 3100 feet.
 
because my N number ends with papa they always call me comanche and I'm like, you shut your mouth..
It's Che-ro-kee! Oh! :D
FickleThickChrysalis-size_restricted.gif
 
joycem137 said:
You can hear him complain around 28:45 in this live atc bit, just after I landed: https://archive-server.liveatc.net/khwd/KHWD-Jul-27-2020-0000Z.mp3

It's hard to hear what I said in response, but I basically said "7008F is a PA32-300, a Piper Cherokee Six"
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I'd say you caved pretty quick. not saying it's worth arguing over, but since you were on the ground I would have told him that it wasn't a 'toga, but if that made things easier for them, sure, no prob.

I used to get called cherokee whether I flew a cherokee, archer, arrow, and even sometimes the lance. one time I was heading up to charleston WV and atc was warning me about another cherokee and was going to have me climb. then he comes back a little puzzled and said "you've got at least a 40kt overtake on the other cherokee" and we had a quick conversation about how I was actually a lance.
 
Will Kumley said:
Pretty sure I saw a YT video of Christy Wong saying she refers to her Warrior as a Cherokee as "Warrior" would sometimes even confuse other pilots when they thought they were looking at a Cherokee in the pattern.
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I once had a friendly bored traffic controller ask me "What are you worried about, Cherokee?" after using the call sign Warrior instead of Cherokee.
 
eman1200 said:
I'd say you caved pretty quick. not saying it's worth arguing over, but since you were on the ground I would have told him that it wasn't a 'toga, but if that made things easier for them, sure, no prob.

I used to get called cherokee whether I flew a cherokee, archer, arrow, and even sometimes the lance. one time I was heading up to charleston WV and atc was warning me about another cherokee and was going to have me climb. then he comes back a little puzzled and said "you've got at least a 40kt overtake on the other cherokee" and we had a quick conversation about how I was actually a lance.
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Oh yeah, I'm not about to take up airtime arguing with anyone.
 
ATC calls all AA-5X aircraft Tigers even if they are Cheetahs or Travelers. But my Traveler doesn't go any faster when you call it a Tiger. :(
 
joycem137 said:
My first instructor on my bird has the same admonishment to me when I asked her how to call up. AND I've been flying it around 300 hours over the past two years with no complaints from ATC until yesterday. This confusion is why I generally just stick with "Piper 7008F" so I'm not calling it A Cherokee OR a Saratoga.
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That should work for most reasonable controllers, or it should. If they need to know they can ask. The ones with the radars and data blocks will figure it out. If the non radar equipped controllers ask, say “PA32”. If grumpy doesn’t like that you can ask him, “you don’t have a radar in the tower?”.
 
joycem137 said:
To be clear, this isn't so much a question about what to file as, since I just file as a PA32-300... But rather what to say to tower or ground. In this case, I greeted tower with "Hayward Tower, Piper 7008F is over the freeway interchange at 3000 inbound for landing with Golf" and after I landed, he chastised me to call myself "Saratoga 7008F" when calling up for landing/takeoff in the future.

I got the sense he wouldn't have put me into the shorter runway had he known I was a PA32, even though it was 3100 feet and plenty of room. More than my home airport at KRHV even.
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It’s not Ike you said “Piper” and were actually a Mirage.
 
I’d say “Piper” is a bit too generic. “Cherokee” or “Saratoga” is probably fine.
 
When asked type of aircraft I say Cessna 182. After that they usually refer to me as a Skylane which is incorrect. Mike is a 1957 A model. The Skylane version of the 182 wasn't but until 1958.

I know picky picky. Skylane is fine but...

In the case of the OP I too think PA32 is fine.
 
My Bonanza is a Bonanza, but it is a BE33, so they call me Debonair all the time. I learned their written tests at the FAA Academy actually expect certain ICAO IDs to be called certain things. I'm guessing P32A is Saratoga, no matter what.

chemgeek said:
ATC calls all AA-5X aircraft Tigers even if they are Cheetahs or Travelers. But my Traveler doesn't go any faster when you call it a Tiger. :(
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I always call up as "Tiger" so they know I'm going to eat that SkyChicken ahead of me alive lol.
 
I’d give them the icao and let them whine if they want.
 
Two funny ones on this.

I called up tower: RVxyz holding short three two at Alpha.
Reply: Your third wheel is on the wrong end, cleared for take-off three two

I was requesting flight following: Nxyz, is an RV6, going to Kxyz, seven thousand five hundred
Reply: you're supposed to say experimental, standby

I think some controllers just get bored and correcting people is their version of "Meow on guard".
 
I'm pretty clear about being a Skylane but probably a third or more of the time they just use Skyhawk - generic I guess.
 
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