February 2005-
It must have been evident to William T. Piper that his company’s popular line of affordable light aircraft was wearing a little thin at the marketplace in the mid-1950s. While buyers had welcomed the low-cost tube and fabric designs in the immediate postwar years when not much else was available, they began moving toward more sophisticated equipment as new and faster all-metal models were introduced by Beech, Cessna, Navion and a host of other manufacturers.
Not a deliberate innovator, Bill Piper first turned to existing models from freelance designers for inspiration. In 1952 he flew to Wichita and made an offer for the M-20 design by Al Mooney, but was turned down. He also expressed interest in John Thorpe’s Sky Scooter and Fred Weick’s Ercoupe, but there were no takers.
It is not clear what happened when Piper returned from his unsuccessful buying trip, but by early 1955, rumors of a sleek new single began to circulate around Lock Haven. It was called the PA-24 Comanche, and was Piper’s first departure from its traditional production designs.
The origins of the airplane, however, are cloudy. No one person or group is given credit, but because of its complexity and the sophistication of the design, it almost certainly could not have originated in the company’s small engineering department, leading to the conclusion that the Comanche likely came from outside.
In any case, the PA-24 first flew in summer 1956 and entered the market in early 1958. It was everything previous Pipers were not—modern, sleek and fast—and about double the cost of a Tri-Pacer, which must have caused Bill Piper a great deal of anxiety.
With a tapered laminar-flow wing and “flying tail” adapted from contemporary jet fighter design, it was powered by a four-cylinder, 180 hp Lycoming O-360 and had retractable landing gear.
The $14,500 base-priced airplane could top out at 167 mph and cruise at 160. With a 250 hp O-540 powerplant, the step-up PA-24-250 at $17,900 had a near-200 mph top end and 23 mph more at cruise, putting it in direct competition with the Beech V-35J Bonanza—and did for $6,400 less.
Ironically, it was the Comanche’s selling price that created a problem at Lock Haven. Accustomed to simpler and more manageable labor and material costs, accountants found that estimating manufacturing expense on the all-metal airplane was more complicated to figure than it had been in the days of the Cub and Tri-Pacer.
That, along with management’s rather capricious decision to set a selling price before basic costs were determined, created what could be benevolently termed a break-even figure. It was rumored in the industry that Piper was losing $1,000 (about five percent) on every airplane.
The PA-24 was a complicated and time-intensive airplane to build, comprised of more than 4,000 separate parts, and it didn’t add much, if any, profit to company coffers. However, customers loved the Comanche.
The $28,750 PA-25-260 model came along in 1965 and was followed by B and C variants in 1966 and 1969. The B introduced a fuel-injected engine, a fifth/sixth seat option, additional side windows, soundproofing and a 100-pound additional gross weight, and another 100 pounds was added on the C model.
The $33,740, 222 mph Turbo version (with Rajay unit) was added in 1970, but proved less than stellar to potential customers who were experiencing rising fuel costs. Only 28 units were sold in two years.
The pièce de résistance was the 1964-65 Comanche 400, and if Carroll Shelby had designed it, he would have called it the Cobra. The 400 looked like other Comanches except for a sensuous, long engine cowl which housed a 720 cu. in, eight-cylinder, 400 hp Lycoming.
At its hefty 3,600 pound gross weight, it could take off in less than 1,000 feet and climb at more than 1,500 fpm on its way to a 223 mph top speed. With an optional 130 gallons of fuel capacity, it furnished a range that was longer than anyone’s bladder could last.
It was the fastest single on the market, but the blazing performance came at the cost of a 16.4 gph fuel flow—at economy cruise! Or for the same money, a buyer could get a new 180 hp Comanche and a new Cadillac Sedan De Ville to use for an airport car. Base priced at $28,750, only 148 of the hot singles were sold. To its credit, most of them are still on the FAA registry.
A healthy total of 4,717 Comanche singles were produced between 1958 and 1972, all at Lock Haven. The family line ended in 1972 after the Susquehanna River flooded the plant. Faced with rebuilding and millions of dollars for retooling, the company abandoned the Comanche, along with the Pennsylvania facility, and moved everything to Florida, where all they had to worry about was hurricanes.
While the Comanche had been an accountant’s nightmare, at least it had been a critical success. As early as 1957, the company decided to return to the low-cost market that had made it famous—and profitable.
In January of that year, work started on the preliminary design for a lower cost single that would be less complex and more profitable than the PA-24. It would have a simple constant chord wing and the Comanche’s stabilator—but only half the total number of its parts. The airplane would be built at the company’s new plant in Vero Beach and it would be known as Cherokee.
As a Piper Flyer contributing editor, Daryl Murphy specializes in historic articles, since he was there when it happened. Murphy began flying and writing about flying during the LBJ Administration, and in addition to duties at Piper Flyer, he is a correspondent for Aviation International News and General Aviation News.
