Piper Comanche 400......Thoughts?

FloridaPilot

FloridaPilot

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I never seen a Piper Comanche 400 in person.

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Has anybody flown one? What was the experience like.
 
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FloridaPilot said:
What is the average fuel burn? I know it's a V8 and Pipers aren't known for fuel efficiency.
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Digging around shows a burn of about 23gph for 185 knots. The 400 is definitely sexy, but I think I'd rather have a Twin Comanche. :)
 
FloridaPilot said:
What is the average fuel burn? I know it's a V8 and Pipers aren't known for fuel efficiency.
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The motor is essentially a Lycoming IO-540 with two more cylinders added. Fuel burn is going to approximate an IO-540 + 1/3 under the same settings. That's the theory.

For reference, the two IO-540s in my Piper burn 10.5 to 11.5 gph each in cruise when I am at or above 10,000 ft

However, I've heard the back two cylinders on the 720 can be difficult to keep cool and operations might be richer?
 
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Saw one on the ramp a few years ago and talked to the pilot. He mentioned being based in the LA area, and that when he needs to climb above about 7500, he has to level-off there and do a step climb so he doesn’t overheat the engine.

But it was an absolutely beautiful machine. I believe he claimed 180-190 kts.
 
FloridaPilot said:
I never seen a Piper Comanche 400 in person.

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Has anybody flown one? What was the experience like.
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I was parked very close to that one at Oshkosh until I left this morning. It’s gorgeous. Anyone who keeps that polish up most likely doesn’t mind the special requirements of the plane (fuel burn, lots of care to avoid overheating, and maintaining twice as big of an engine as most of us have).
 
asicer said:
It's not two IO-360's welded together?
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Angle valve 360s to be more accurate. Even then, the pricing on the cylinder kits are even more unobtanium than the angle 360 cylinders, which are already at "ludicrous speed" pricing. It is certainly fair enough reason why a twinkie would actually be cheaper to operate and maintain for the same speed at non-oxygen altitudes. Likewise, the turbo 540 application on the single comanche would be a better alternative to the comanche 400 on all metrics except climb rate between sea level and the altitude the comanche 400 can't produce 260HP.

iamtheari said:
I was parked very close to that one at Oshkosh until I left this morning. It’s gorgeous. Anyone who keeps that polish up most likely doesn’t mind the special requirements of the plane (fuel burn, lots of care to avoid overheating, and maintaining twice as big of an engine as most of us have).
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I wouldn't necessarily blame the engine for the overheating issues, distinction without a difference as that may be. The comanche is an old bird; the cowling could be improved to give this engine better cooling. But there's no economic incentive to do so on these museum pieces.
 
hindsight2020 said:
Likewise, the turbo 540 application on the single comanche would be a better alternative to the comanche 400 on all metrics except climb rate between sea level and the altitude the comanche 400 can't produce 260HP.
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Using the 3% per 1000 rule that would be around 12,000MSL, pretty near the oxygen limit reg.
 
asicer said:
Using the 3% per 1000 rule that would be around 12,000MSL, pretty near the oxygen limit reg.
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Indeed, which is what Piper was trying to do in the first place when it opted for horsepower in lieu of turbo, for otherwise identical cabin volumetrics as the lower horsepowered variants. The market spoke as to the merits of that choice.
 
When I was looking I remember thinking, hmm I wonder if there are a lot of difficult to obtain engine parts. If I needed a new case, crank or cam would these be wildly expensive because of their rarity? We all know parts producers price them according to availability.
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
When I was looking I remember thinking, hmm I wonder if there are a lot of difficult to obtain engine parts. If I needed a new case, crank or cam would these be wildly expensive because of their rarity? We all know parts producers price them according to availability.
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I made the same remark about the airframe itself when I decided to scratch it off my upgrade list. It's a good airplane, but a bit too antique for my projected ownership tenure going forward. Not saying it's a show stopper for everybody, just for me.
 
I bet the price of a crank would bring tears to a strong man's eye. I would love to fly one though. The sound of that engine WOT is music.

I'm very happy with my 250 though.
 
Can always throttle back. Haha. Like anyone flying more than 100HP throttles back.

As far as the airframe. Have yet to run into a problem procuring any parts. It's way overblown. People act like there's only 2 salvaged aircraft in the entire world to get parts from.
 
EdFred said:
Can always throttle back. Haha. Like anyone flying more than 100HP throttles back.

As far as the airframe. Have yet to run into a problem procuring any parts. It's way overblown. People act like there's only 2 salvaged aircraft in the entire world to get parts from.
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Fred, Tom, we had 3 beech Queenairs with the Excalibur conversion that had these engines.
I've overhauled four of them. We needed a crank in 1998 for one and it was $12k as removed. Aircraft specialties turned it and we had 13k in it by the time we put it in. That was 20 years ago.
The Queen Airs burned 38 gph combined at cruise.
Dan
 
The -720 is yet further proof that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. :D
 
Dan Johnson said:
Fred, Tom, we had 3 beech Queenairs with the Excalibur conversion that had these engines.
I've overhauled four of them. We needed a crank in 1998 for one and it was $12k as removed. Aircraft specialties turned it and we had 13k in it by the time we put it in. That was 20 years ago.
The Queen Airs burned 38 gph combined at cruise.
Dan
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Engine != airframe. But yeah those cranks and cams are pretty rare.
 
hindsight2020 said:
The -720 is yet further proof that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. :D
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It harks back to the onset of the sixties muscle car era; the first Pontiac GTO came out the same year as the Comanche 400 was introduced. Back then I believe the mantra was "There's no substitute for cubic inches" :D:cool:
 
So the Piper Comanche 250 is pretty much the same airplane as the 400 but a different engine?
 
FloridaPilot said:
So the Piper Comanche 250 is pretty much the same airplane as the 400 but a different engine?
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Mostly, except the 400 tailfeathers are not the same parts.
 
Pilawt said:
Ah, but they were beautiful ...
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Still are!

Not only do they look great but the 250/260 Comanche get you Bonanza performance at a lower initiation fee.

My little airport has at least 5 Comanches, including the 400 I posted a picture of earlier. Unfortunately the hull values are now so low that if anything happens the insurance companies tend to write them off. Couple of friends of mine had a gear problem in theirs earlier this year. Did as perfect a landing as one could expect and the plane didn't look too banged up. But it got written off and it was sad to see it trucked away with the wings off a few days later. I hope someone salvages and rebuilds it. I asked what they were going to replace it with, and one decided to go back to flying commercially for a living and the other is indulging his vintage motorcycle habit with the proceeds. :(
 
148 Comanche 400s were built; of which 78 are still listed on the FAA registry.

Trivia: Though marketed as "PA-24-400" to show kinship to other Comanches, it was developed with the model number "PA-26". Other Comanche serial numbers all have the prefix "24-", but Comanche 400s have the serial number range of "26-1" to "26-148". (Likewise the Apache 235 and Aztec, which were known internally at Piper as "PA-27", and have the serial number prefix "27-".)

In those days Piper outsourced a lot of R&D work to Ed Swearingen, who developed the beautiful PA-30 Twin Comanche. Swearingen also built a prototype of a not-so-beautiful 260 hp pressurized Comanche (PA-33).

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GRG55 said:
Still are!

Not only do they look great but the 250/260 Comanche get you Bonanza performance at a lower initiation fee.

My little airport has at least 5 Comanches, including the 400 I posted a picture of earlier. Unfortunately the hull values are now so low that if anything happens the insurance companies tend to write them off. Couple of friends of mine had a gear problem in theirs earlier this year. Did as perfect a landing as one could expect and the plane didn't look too banged up. But it got written off and it was sad to see it trucked away with the wings off a few days later. I hope someone salvages and rebuilds it. I asked what they were going to replace it with, and one decided to go back to flying commercially for a living and the other is indulging his vintage motorcycle habit with the proceeds. :(
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It's a common outcome for these things nowadays. It's not so much that the low hull values auto-terminate them, it's that the cost of repair and replace is higher than newer vintages. Control surfaces and wing components a la carté? Complete non-starter in that airplane. Everybody speaks to these things being acts of God, but based on my experience in a community hangar, or even the most cursory off-station ramp overnight, no way in hell I sink avionics money of any consequence into a comanche considering these replacement economics. In a Cherokee you just cross the road from where you crashed it and someone has it on the shelves.

Additionally, people generally have held on to them and as that demographic has aged out, these things have gone into disrepair, as they don't find a suitable niche in the training market (even overseas, where my engine-runout Warrior II ended up at), so they become parts fodder. Bonanzas have a more robust legacy support baseline by virtue of being more popular, even though I consider the comanche more desirable both on the engine, airframe (Al vs Mg) and cabin volumetrics fronts.

I suppose the upside, much like the Aztec/Apache storyline, is that there should be some surplus parts salvaging for a good decade or so, based on these retirements. I still don't consider that a compliment to ownership, BUT, again as is the case with the Aztec, there's simply no new equivalent that does what these Lock Haven relics do for the money. And that is a compliment to the types. Truly bittersweet set of circumstances for American GA.

If Cirrus is the only thing the recreational individual market has for an answer in the aggregate, we're right effed. Those bathtubs are not going to age well; their unaffordability in insurance claims when fully depreciated will make the comanche woes look like kindergarten. What's worse, there's actually not that many of them compared to the 70s production numbers of the combined Pi-Cess-Craft vintage.
 
Ah yes the expertise of a non-owner in type. Hold on and let me tell all the 210 and 337 owners about their imaginary problems since I don't own either of those.
 
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EdFred said:
Ah yes the expertise of a non-owner in type. Hold on and let me tell all the 210 and 337 owners about their imaginary problems since I don't own either of those.
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me thinks the lady doth protest too much.
 
Yeah you do ramble on about all the "problems" of the Comanche every chance you get. We get it. You don't like them for unfounded reasons. Try owning for going on 10 years and get back to us with all these mystery problems.
 
I think Piper Comanche's are beautiful, unfortunately I don't know someone with one so I can't bum a ride. Are parts hard to find with the 250/260?
 
FloridaPilot said:
I think Piper Comanche's are beautiful, unfortunately I don't know someone with one so I can't bum a ride. Are parts hard to find with the 250/260?
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I have one, but I'm not in Florida. I haven't had any parts issue. I also have a shop next door to my A&P I just need to give them a drawing and they can make anything I need out of nearly any material. So I will just go the owner produced parts route if there's something so rare out there it doesn't exist - which isn't the case no matter what the naysayers claim.

Make it to Gastons/6Y9 or other fly-ins and I'd be happy to poison your soul.
 
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