Watching Your Six
It is hard to imagine anyone who has ever learned to fly or lived near an airport where flight training takes place, who doesn’t instantly recognise Mr Piper’s Cherokee aircraft. The ubiquitous low-wing plane with its wheels permanently down, ready to land, is one of the most widely used training and cross-hire aircraft in the world.
And why not? They are a strong, reliable, relatively simple plane to fly, with excellent flying characteristics that offer no nasty surprises close to limits.
But the small Cherokees–generally referred to as Warriors and Archers with a number of variants across the range–simply couldn’t compete with the Cessna 205/206 which was released in the mid 60s as a big single with seating for six. In response, Piper developed the six-seater PA-32-260 Cherokee Six. Essentially the designers had stretched the PA-28 fuselage to make it longer and wider. In fact, they increased the inside width by 178 mm, giving over 1.3 metres of shoulder room for pilot and passenger. Furthermore, in a moment of genius, instead of redesigning the rest of the aircraft to suit the rearward stretched fuselage, the designers also stretched the front of the body to include a forward cargo space in behind the engine. Capable of carrying 45 kg of cargo, this space has remained on every variant of the Cherokee Six.
Most aviation enthusiasts will know that the Cherokee range of aircraft came with two wing styles. The older style was essentially a rectangular slabincreased the overall wingspan.
