I'll have to second Paul's recommendation on the Warrior and it's not
only because I own one. If you do the research, the Warrior has one of
the best useful loads for the price range. Typical full fuel payloads
hover around 600 lbs (give or take 50 lbs). That's the same as many
six-seater full-fuel payloads--albeit not as fast of course.

There are usually more Archers on the market than Warriors at any given
time but the Archers run about $20K-$40K more for similarly-equipment
airframes. The cruise speeds are only a few knots more but they have
about 100lbs more useful load. Again, pretty darn good.

Cessna 172's are of course good but similar models are usually about
$10 more than the Pipers.

As others have advised, the best place to find/get any aircraft is at
your local airport.

Marco

Paul Tomblin wrote:
In a previous article, Curt Fennell said:
Does anybody have any thoughts on 4-seaters in the $30k-$40k range?
Am I completely fooling myself or can I get a decent older bird for
that price that will carry 4 people for a $400 hamburger on the
weekends?

Our flying club just sold our 1977 PA28-161 Warrior. We had it listed for
$43K but it ended up going for closer to $35K because the market is so
depressed. Except for the fact that it didn't have an autopilot, it was a
great plane and I was almost tempted to buy it myself. You can see from
the pictures at http://xcski.com/gallery/v/rfc/38290/ that it had great
paint and a good pre-GPS panel.

With full fuel, it could carry 595 pounds. Whether that's 4 people or not
depends a lot of the people.


--
Paul Tomblin http://blog.xcski.com/
Remember, you're dealing with developers. If they knew what they were
doing, they wouldn't be doing it.
-- Mike A