Piper Arapaho

Somewhere between a Twinkie and a Seneca.

https://www.barnstormers.com/ad_detail.php?id=1660956

Holy cow. According to Wikipedia, only 3 were completed. One was destroyed in spin trials, and one was later scrapped. This is the only survivor.

That thing is looking for a nice, quiet ramp on which to languish and die.

I didn't realize there were any survivors. I wonder if it uses any common parts from other Piper aircraft.

who would want a one airplane example?

Rgs,

Patrick

The benefit is you never get an airframe AD!

Seriously?

This is a one of a kind airplane. It's unique in the world. You don't buy it because it's a better plane than your Twin Comanche, you buy it because you think that it's special and you want it.

There are people who restore old piston twins all of the time and most of them are not at all unique in any way.

I wouldn't want to put the time and money into it that it will likely need, but I sure like that it's been brought back to flight status. Hopefully they can get a new Standard airworthiness certificate for it.

So what happens if you damage an elevator or a leading edge? And would you even be able to get insurance on it?

My guess would be that if the part isn't available (matching part on a PA39 for example) then you'd have to "fabricate" one.

They build entire warbirds around a data plate. If you want to keep this airplane flying, it can be done.

Can you get insurance for it? Probably. They insure homebuilts, they insure warbirds. My guess is that the dollar value of the policy would dictate their enthusiasm more than what it is. You'd need to find someone who remembers how to do manual underwriting since it won't show up on a table anywhere, but I think a good argument could be made that it's equivalent to a PA39 from an insurance standpoint.

The Arapaho was the final evolution of the Twin Comanche. In fact, you can buy the dorsal fin and the windshield and put them on your Twinkie.

There are a couple of interesting differences -
The main gear legs are extended to get rid of the PA30’s 3 degree nose high attitude sitting on the ramp.
There is a ventral fin to help with the lateral stability.
There are leading edge extension on the stab that come forward along the fuselage.
The wing’s two bladders per wing have been combined and the tip tanks eliminated.

It’s clearly derived from the PA30 - and has nothing in common with the Seneca.

i don’t know how much parts commonality it has with the PA30/39.

Zeke

As a collector's item. Just because someone thinks its fun to own a unique piece of history.

Owning it would be better than getting one of these NFTs I’ve been hearing about.

-paul

“Rescued” it from Purdue. Looks like Purdue did a pretty good job preserving it over the years.

If you follow the NFT model you could have TRW crash it and sell the NFT

Call Del @ BR549. Forming a leading edge skin is within the realm of do-able.

The Arapaho certainly qualifies for the alternatives defined in the Vintage Aircraft Maint AC.

Piper did use some aluminum extrusions that might be difficult to source …