Instead of dropping them from the production line, maybe Piper will finally have the incentive to modify it with some more horsepower.
Nope. The time to have done that was when the Comanche drowned. Piper made a specific move to keep the Arrow power handicapped and narrow cabin'd in order to not poach sales from their darling Piper Lance, gambling it would compete with Beech Debonair or Cessna's 182RG product. Oops.
That fight got lost a long time ago. To be fair to Piper, the Arrow was in fact successful in later life in meeting profitability (it was much more profitable than the Comanche ever was) via the flight training market niche. But the hamstringing it encountered from the outset by not giving it the 45 inch cabin of the comanche and/or not retracting the Dakota, sealed the deal for the line. I still don't consider a Lance anywhere near a suitable
substitute product for a Comanche. A 250HP Arrow would be a closer substitute, cheaper as hell to mx that's for sure.
The airplane gets a bad rep about speed, but the reality is that the airfoil and cowling was cheaply put together. But that too was a known purposeful decision, not a design mystery. Overlapped skins, and protruded rivets were all cost-conscious labor decisions. Aftermarket modifications have been made to a stock Arrow where the rivets are smoothed with paste and the tanks are faired, and it makes M20F numbers, and you don't have to sit on your @ass and eat the panel like Moooney requires you to. These things are just not that high performance; nominal fairing streamlining goes a longer way than over the top over factory labor in overly complicated metal work at the expense of cabin volumetrics to attain the same end. They just chose not to pursue it because they didn't have to for the training market. With it they killed its competitiveness in the personal travel market. It is what it is.
Fixed gear Piper owners also don't help with their fanaticism over the Archer and Dakota, and overestimation of the cost to maintain the Arrow gear. Projection that you can easily spot when they don't speak ill of the Lance and Seneca, not understanding it is the same system and the same expense structure (i.e. cheap to mx). But say one bad thing about their siamese mag on the Dakota and hoo boy, watch the sparks fly. I've got a warmer reception at the Mooney board as an Arrow owner than I ever did on that account by the zealots on the Piper board. LOL With friends like these....
I'm mulling over getting rid of it these days, but I've grown spoiled by how damn cheap it is to maintain compared to the upgrade candidates, for the improvements I got from the warrior. Mechanical flaps, no bladders NOR wet wings, and a Lyco-banger up front. Just a cheapskate's dream. I can tell you without a doubt, that if this thing had 100 lbs more useful and got closer to 150KTAS (aka had a six banger), we'd keep it. For all my complaints about it, it has done my mission well.
I just always wanted them to fold the legs on the Dakota. I think that would have been a pretty ideal airplane.
Of course it was, it was a complete fumble on the part of Piper. And you'll find a lot of people share that opinion of other decisions related to the move to the Vero Beach line of products and away from Lock Heaven's offerings. For me the dream died when primary non-commercial was snuffed by the FAA. I was ready to go and invest in a Turbo or NA Arrow III airframe and make it my forever airplane by bolting an injected 540 on it.
