Why did Piper cease Aerostar production if it were such a wonderful twin piston?

Most pressurized piston twins were discontinued in the 1984-1985 time period. The Aerostar 700P, the Cessna 340, 414 , 421 and the Baron 58P as well as the Duke in 1983 were all discontinued at that time. In the late 70's and early 80's there were many of these airplanes produced and were still low time and in good condition. Piper, after buying the Aerostar, immediately raised the price of the new airplanes from about $300,000.00 to $450,000.00. The new 1981/1982 Aerostars didn't offer more performance, except for the 700P in 1983, and owners didn't see the value so they weren't trading up. It didn't help that Machen Inc. was doing 350 HP engine conversions in 1979,80,81, and 82 offering factory new 350 HP counter rotating engines with state of the art intercoolers, new props and other options for about $100,000.00 and gave a credit for the low time engines removed. These converted airplanes were a good 30 knots faster than a new Piper 602P and had a lot more climb performance. Piper countered in 1984 with the 700P but by then it was too late. The marketing people in Piper also realized that they could produce the Malibu for a lot less money and sell it for more so why build piston twins?
Of course there were other reasons like insurance companies requiring 200 hrs. of multi engine time before getting insurance in a pressurized piston twin. It is interesting that now there is no such requirement for getting insurance in a pressurized twin. The introduction of the turbine singles in the 90's sealed the fate of the piston twin. It helped that the single turbine manufacturer was buying monthly $25,000.00 full page ads in magazines and ad managers told editors "these guys are paying you salary, and it wouldn't hurt if you wright some really good articles about turbine singles and how you owners are too stupid to fly a twin as you will probably kill yourself." Who knows, maybe the editors actually believed that.
Insurance companies liked the idea as well since insuring one of those turbine singles brought in about 5 times the premium. There were other reasons like "if he has enough money to buy a 58P he has enough to buy a King Air so lets sell him a Baron and when he has enough time we will trade him up to a King Air."
I think it mostly had to do with the profit margins but insurance companies and magazine editors helped push the narative along. It might sound like I have a dog in this fight but I don't. It is just I was there and I saw it happen.

Reminds me of that old saying in sales: “if you aren’t talking to your customer, someone else is”.

There were considerable legal changes that increased long term liability for aircraft manufacturers. The risk was no longer worth the reward.

It wasn’t just piston twins, a huge segment of the turboprop market was wiped out as well. Gulfstream Commander, Cessna Conquest, Piper Cheyenne, Fairchild Merlin as well as numerous Piper, Cessna and Beech singles and twins.

The list of airplane types that actually survived the 80’s is pretty short.

I use to say that more airplanes were built from ‘76 - ‘86 than have been built since, but thanks to new companies like Cirrus, new aircraft like the TBM and Pilatus PC-12... as well as the emergence of the phenomenal light jet market, that can no longer be said.

The aircraft that are produced today look a lot different than those produced in the ‘80’s, most notable is that almost all piston twins are gone... the coolest of course being the Aerostar.

Some thoughts:

- As a percentage of hull value, my Meridian (SETP) was cheaper to insure than the 421 I had quoted. My Mustang is cheaper on a percentage basis than my Meridian was. I think the insurance market is reflecting risk. I love piston twins, I love jets, and I love turboprops, but I think the statistical question of safety of the three was answered long ago. The insurance market reflects this reality.
- I have no doubt that SETP manufacturers were pushing heavily into the market. Better margins, easier to support, less fail points, faster speed, similar op ex. What's not to love? I think this was more of a technological shift than a monetary one. I would argue that had Piper NOT embraced the PA46 line (Malibu / Meridian) that they would not exist today. Ask anyone at Piper what saved the company, and the universal answer is the PA46 line. The economics of these airplanes can not be beat.
- The economic cycle of the early to mid 80's was not kind to GA. Neither was the regulatory / liability environment. The bottom line is - nobody could make pressurized piston twins and make money anymore.

IMHO the demise of pressurized piston twins was the introduction of the SETP. Because of safety, speed, reliability, range, blah blah blah.

A new 340 today would cost the same as a new Meridian. I know which I would choose. And which the majority of the market would choose. The invisible hand went in that direction.

I vaguely recall hearing that Piper destroyed the Aerostar tooling when they decided to ashcan the design. Anyone know for certain?

Unfortunately, Piper does NOT exist today. They went bankrupt in 1991 or 92. Not even the might PA46 line could save Piper. I agree liability issues were a big factor and Stuart Millar who bought Piper in 1987 was self insured. Judgements and lack of working capital resulted in bankruptcy. A new company "New Piper Aircraft" was formed by an investment group and bought the assets of the bankrupt Piper without the tail of liability of 100,000 previously manufactured Piper airplanes.
Regarding economics of the PA46 it is a Great Deal for the manufacturer. Take a Mirage at 1.1 million retail price in 2015, subtract 150K for the engine, pay 450K for a PT6, sell it for 2.24 million retail price in 2015, and make an additional $840,000.00 profit with the same/similar airframe.
Best regards,
Jim

Piper destroyed the Assembly Tooling for the Aerostar and I think other airplanes like the Cheyenne. Assembly tooling is hard to move and pretty much has to be built in place in the assembly building. Aerostar Aircraft purchased all of the detail tooling (like the tooling used to make hydropress parts like ribs, bulkheads, frames etc.) and supplies these parts to the existing fleet. Aerostar Aircraft also has the stretch form dies used to make compound curved parts like nose skins, gear door skins, and cowling skins. The tooling also exists to make the pressurized windshield, and all of the windows, and those parts are readily available, along with new glass windshield hot plates.

The Aerostar was the best plane I ever had. Amazing handling and speed, nothing like it. Too bad the economy didn't keep up with my aircraft purchases.

Andy

I always wanted an Aerostar. How's the build quality on the Aerostar compared to say a P Baron? All the Aerostars I looked at seemed to have a lot of smoking rivets for relatively low airframe times but I heard the skins are super thick and the real VNE is insanely high so obviously they are strong.

How many p barons have 20,000 hours? None.

The Aerostar is built like a Jet as the skins are thicker than the baron. I'll let Jim speak to the rivets as they weren't a problem for me.

Andy

What I loved about my Aerostar was that, say you were at 14000ft and ATC gave you a slam dunk descent/approach, I just pushed the nose over. Never touched the throttles. Just took the speed. Because the Aerostar has virtually no yellow band and a very high Vne.

They're built like tanks.

From my reading in the AOA magazine, there were about 10 wings that had tons of leaking rivets (S/N 300-310) when the change over of manufacturing the wings from Ryan to Aerostar took place. Of course, I have 314 and a hand full of seeping rivets... The ones under the boots are the worst, but once I used Aerostar's "fix", they stopped leaking... Until that, I had about 12-18" of the boots peeling off the lower leading edge. I wish I would have known more before I put the new boots on three years ago!

Jason

What was the fix?