Piper Aircraft announced on Monday that it has received an order from flyGATEWAY Aviation Institute for 20 Pilot 100i single-engine trainers. flyGATEWAY, a Part 141 flight academy with locations in Pennsylvania and Delaware, expects to begin taking deliveries of the aircraft in January 2022. According to the school, it currently has 35 flight instructors, 30 aircraft and more than 300 flight students.
“We are extremely excited to work with one of the premier flight schools in the northeast,” said Hans Stancil, Piper fleet sales director for North America. “Their commitment to providing exceptional flight training that is accessible and more affordable is very well aligned with Piper’s mission and commitment to the training industry.”
The Lycoming IO-360-B4A-powered Piper Pilot 100i has a top cruise speed of 128 knots and a 522-NM range and comes equipped with the Garmin G3X Touch flight display. As previously reported by AVweb, Piper introduced the Pilot 100 and IFR-capable 100i version at Sun ‘N Fun 2019. The model received its FAA type certification in December 2020.
Q:
Why does a re-named Archer need a new Type certification?
Because someone has to pay for all those FAA employees hiding in their basements and working their computers in their underwear making simple things hard for all of us !! That’s why it’ll take four years to fix LODA … something THEY invented !!
I don’t think that’s just humor. The FAA has to justify itself and no doubt that will show up on some stat list as an accomplishment much like we’ve been seeing in law enforcement. Instead of providing the services we think they provide, they do the easiest and most risk free thing that they can pass off as doing the job. In this case, a plane was certified in likely 10% of the time. For law enforcement, some minor league offenses by non violent people are dressed up as big deal arrests of organized crime activities.
I saw where the FBI made a bunch of white slavery/ sex traffic arrests in a big campaign to stop that sort of thing. The leaders of the slave trade were the owner of the apartment complex where the girls lived and the guy who hosted the website where they advertised. They were not pimps, they were service providers. All the girls were freely choosing the oldest profession to build a bank roll before going back home. Who snuck them into the country? Uncle Sam. They were here on student visas.
ATF has this junk down to a science. Some guy sells his cousin who had a teen age drug arrest an antique pistol and shotgun for $50 and now he’s a gun runner guilty of multiple offenses of providing guns to felons. They might spend more time on the news conference than the case.
Sheesh… Its an article about some training company buying a bunch of Pipers. Does everything on this site have to turn into (usually ult-right) political scree? Boy, does not take much to bring the AWOGs out of the woodwork.
I’m not sure what it needs a new type certificate if it’s basically a uniquely equipped PA-28 airframe. Is that on account of the new engine they were trying, or was it actually just a new production certification and the article was conflating the two?
Piper added the Piper Pilot 100i to their PA-28 Type Certificate Data Sheet (TCDS) 2A13 November 2020 revision. The model number is still a PA-28-181. The odd thing about the Piper Pilot 100i is it’s a big step backwards. While most new aircraft install more advanced engines with more power and less weight, this aircraft has a 1969 fuel injected engine rated the same as the 1974 carburetor engine. The IO-360-B4A rated 180 HP at 2700 RPM weighs 276 lbs.. The O-360-A4M rated 180 HP at 2700 RPM weighs 261 lbs. The PP-100i is certified to only THREE SEATS. If you wanted to carry a fourth person the aircraft would need a Supplemental Type Certificate (STC) or some TCDS modification instructions by the manufacturer.
I’m guessing the PP-100i will be cheaper to build and insure?