The retract gear took surpising little time to get used to, but the
Piper automatic gear is a pain in the butt. It takes about 100 MPH
before you can retract it on TO, unless you lift the override lever.

Hmmm. Something's not right here. The auto-extension is supposed to be
triggered by a combination of airspeed and manifold pressure (or it it
airspeed and mechanical position of the throttle control?). With full
throttle for takeoff, the gear should go up when you move the selector
lever, regardless of airspeed.

The auto-extend uses the difference between ram and static pressures from the
sensor above the left wing. At full power, the prop wash contributes to the
ram pressure, to allow gear retraction at lower speeds. Our club has an Arrow
and we found it hard to keep the auto-extend adjusted correctly. Once we had
the opposite of the situation described by Matt - at idle power, the gear
wouldn't auto-extend until a very low speed that you'd normally encounter only
well into the landing flare. We finally decided to comply with the Piper
Service Bulletin that eliminates the auto-extend. The Service Bulletin also
includes a pullable circuit breaker for the gear motor, which allows more
realistic training on gear failures and manual gear extension.

Barry