PA-28-140 Cherokee advice

http://www.piperowner.com/

http://www.piperowner.com/

I will "second" Dan's recommendation. The Cherokee Pilots Assocation
is a class act, with a terrific annual fly-in convention, and an
outstanding chat room called (not surprisingly) "Cherokee Chat" --
which you can only access with membership.

Membership also includes a subscription to their monthly magazine. I
highly recommend it.

Also, with regards to the 140, a few things:

1. Don't try to carry 4 adults, unless the back seaters are double
amputees.
2. Don't expect it to be a great performer. It's adequate in cool
weather, sluggish in hot weather, very forgiving, and can be landed on
a dime with practice.
3. Landing at night with that single GE 4509 shining out front is a
drag. Taxiing at a dark, unfamiliar airport is REALLY a drag.
4. The original stock panel lighting is, um, marginal, especially in
the early models.
5. It should have the auto-gas STC, which allows you to use regular
unleaded car gas in that Lycoming O-320. Use it -- you'll save over
$50 per tank-full, and the engine will thank you for not clogging it
with lead.

If it doesn't have the STC -- get it. (Unless you're trapped in one of
the states that have recently mandated the use of ethanol in all
gasoline -- in which case you're out of luck.)

The 140 is a great first plane -- a 2 adults + 2 kids plane with good
range and better-than-150/152 performance, at a great price. Fly it
everywhere, and enjoy that nice, 7 gph fuel burn!
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"


--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

In article .com,
"Jay Honeck" wrote:

Having owned my 140 since 1994, I need to add some comments/responses to Jay's...

1. Don't try to carry 4 adults, unless the back seaters are double
amputees.

agree - sort of. Not a lot of room back there. And watch out for
the relatively low useful load, especially if the airplane has air
conditioning.

2. Don't expect it to be a great performer. It's adequate in cool
weather, sluggish in hot weather, very forgiving, and can be landed on
a dime with practice.

agree (but performs noticably better with 160hp engine and cruise prop)

3. Landing at night with that single GE 4509 shining out front is a
drag. Taxiing at a dark, unfamiliar airport is REALLY a drag.

huh? Landing at night with the single 4509 is just fine. And taxing
at night isn't hard at all.


4. The original stock panel lighting is, um, marginal, especially in
the early models.

Panel lights for the 140 didn't exist until late 1974. But the overhead
red light is ok - especially when combined with something like nulite
instrument lights.


5. It should have the auto-gas STC, which allows you to use regular
unleaded car gas in that Lycoming O-320. Use it -- you'll save over
$50 per tank-full, and the engine will thank you for not clogging it
with lead.

Note that my 140 didn't like 100LL, but a friend's 140 drank the 100LL
with nary a problem. In other words, not all 140's will have problems with
100LL.


Additional comments:

If the 140 is nose-heavy, you can run out of stabilator on landing.

Don't use the lapbelt-thru-the-bowtie-yokes to secure the controls.
The bowtie yokes are plastic and can develop cracks. And it can't
be a good thing for the universals.

I would flightplan for 105 KTAS when my 140 had the 150hp engine.

Stalls are benign.

The 140's hersheybar wings are lighter in roll than other cherokees (tapered
wings or the longer wings on the 180).

Starting the airplane is easy - once you get the hang of "bumping" the starter.

Enjoy the airplane.

--
Bob Noel
Looking for a sig the
lawyers will hate

3. Landing at night with that single GE 4509 shining out front is a
drag. Taxiing at a dark, unfamiliar airport is REALLY a drag.

huh? Landing at night with the single 4509 is just fine. And taxing
at night isn't hard at all.

I guess everything is relative, but I found the landing light on a
Cherokee -- all Cherokees, not just 140s -- to be a joke. It's like
landing with a flashlight -- which really isn't too bad, but...

What IS bad (at our airport, especially, which has 50-year-old
reflectors instead of lights on the taxiways) is taxiing. That little
100 watt bulb out front (with its whopping 25 hour lifespan) is a
single point of failure that just, well, sucks. It doesn't light up
diddly squat, and if you don't know where you're going, a dark airport
is REALLY dark.

The solution is wing landing lights, which I've added to our Cherokee.
Put a couple of Q4509s out there and the taxiways look like broad
daylight -- and you look like a DC-9 on final approach...

:-)
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

On 24 Aug 2006 20:27:50 -0700, "Jay Honeck"
wrote:
The solution is wing landing lights, which I've added to our Cherokee.
Put a couple of Q4509s out there and the taxiways look like broad
daylight -- and you look like a DC-9 on final approach...

My solution for taxiing around those dark airports at night is a
750,000 candlepower handheld 12VDC light that I can plug into the
lighter port... I just slide back my canopy during the rollout after
landing and stick my hand with the light outside so that it won't
reflect off my windshield...

Careful the 750,000 candlepower light doesn't over-load the
cigarette lighter, they are not a high amperage circuit.


"Grumman-581" wrote
in message
...
| On 24 Aug 2006 20:27:50 -0700, "Jay Honeck"

| wrote:
| The solution is wing landing lights, which I've added to
our Cherokee.
| Put a couple of Q4509s out there and the taxiways look
like broad
| daylight -- and you look like a DC-9 on final
approach...
|
| My solution for taxiing around those dark airports at
night is a
| 750,000 candlepower handheld 12VDC light that I can plug
into the
| lighter port... I just slide back my canopy during the
rollout after
| landing and stick my hand with the light outside so that
it won't
| reflect off my windshield...

On Thu, 24 Aug 2006 23:20:04 -0500, "Jim Macklin"
wrote:
Careful the 750,000 candlepower light doesn't over-load the
cigarette lighter, they are not a high amperage circuit.

I haven't had a problem with it yet and I've been doing it for quite a
few years now... Regardless, I also have an 8Ah battery pack that I
built that has a lighter plug on it also... I usually use it to power
my PDA w/GPS so that I'm not completely dependent upon the internal
batteries in it... Sometimes I'll also use it to power my laptop, but
considering the fact that the laptop probably takes 50W, the 8Ah
battery would give me less than 2 hours of full power use out of it...
If I leave the display on the laptop closed except when I need to
refer to the moving map on it, I suspect that it will last quite a bit
longer... All in all, I tend to prefer not to leave these plugged into
the aircraft's lighter port...

Hehe.. did that.

Was accused of being a Dash 8 at night..

..not a DC 9, but a close enough nice complement on our new lights. :

Dave

On 24 Aug 2006 20:27:50 -0700, "Jay Honeck"
wrote:

3. Landing at night with that single GE 4509 shining out front is a
drag. Taxiing at a dark, unfamiliar airport is REALLY a drag.

huh? Landing at night with the single 4509 is just fine. And taxing
at night isn't hard at all.

I guess everything is relative, but I found the landing light on a
Cherokee -- all Cherokees, not just 140s -- to be a joke. It's like
landing with a flashlight -- which really isn't too bad, but...

What IS bad (at our airport, especially, which has 50-year-old
reflectors instead of lights on the taxiways) is taxiing. That little
100 watt bulb out front (with its whopping 25 hour lifespan) is a
single point of failure that just, well, sucks. It doesn't light up
diddly squat, and if you don't know where you're going, a dark airport
is REALLY dark.

The solution is wing landing lights, which I've added to our Cherokee.
Put a couple of Q4509s out there and the taxiways look like broad
daylight -- and you look like a DC-9 on final approach...

:-)

Bob Noel wrote:

3. Landing at night with that single GE 4509 shining out front is a
drag. Taxiing at a dark, unfamiliar airport is REALLY a drag.

huh? Landing at night with the single 4509 is just fine. And taxing
at night isn't hard at all.


Anyone who thinks any Cherokee is badly lit should try my Beech 23 with
the single wingtip bulb. G

Bob Noel wrote:
"Jay Honeck" wrote:

Having owned my 140 since 1994, I need to add some comments/responses to Jay's


I've had mine since '92, so I'll add a few comments too...


1. Don't try to carry 4 adults, unless the back seaters are double
amputees.

agree - sort of. Not a lot of room back there. And watch out for
the relatively low useful load, especially if the airplane has air
conditioning.

I've had three adults in mine... it's kinda tight. The rear person had to
angle their legs towards the center. Four is fine of the back seat passengers
are children.


2. Don't expect it to be a great performer. It's adequate in cool
weather, sluggish in hot weather, very forgiving, and can be landed on
a dime with practice.

agree (but performs noticably better with 160hp engine and cruise prop)

Or climb prop if you prefer to climb! The gap seal kits and Powerflow
exhaust also help in this area.


3. Landing at night with that single GE 4509 shining out front is a
drag. Taxiing at a dark, unfamiliar airport is REALLY a drag.

huh? Landing at night with the single 4509 is just fine. And taxing
at night isn't hard at all.

I agree with Bob. Its never been a problem.



4. The original stock panel lighting is, um, marginal, especially in
the early models.

Panel lights for the 140 didn't exist until late 1974. But the overhead
red light is ok - especially when combined with something like nulite
instrument lights.


I suplement mine with a few battery operated mini spot lights.



5. It should have the auto-gas STC, which allows you to use regular
unleaded car gas in that Lycoming O-320. Use it -- you'll save over
$50 per tank-full, and the engine will thank you for not clogging it
with lead.

Note that my 140 didn't like 100LL, but a friend's 140 drank the 100LL
with nary a problem. In other words, not all 140's will have problems with
100LL.


I've used 100LL when my plane was 150hp, as well as 160. Never had a problem.
I switched to REM37BY spark plugs a long time ago... that may have helped.
I often wish I was still 150hp, though, so I could use autogas.




Additional comments:

If the 140 is nose-heavy, you can run out of stabilator on landing.


The stabilizer gap seal from Knots2U will help this.


Don't use the lapbelt-thru-the-bowtie-yokes to secure the controls.
The bowtie yokes are plastic and can develop cracks. And it can't
be a good thing for the universals.


agreed.


I would flightplan for 105 KTAS when my 140 had the 150hp engine.


A 160hp with gap seals can flightplan for 110-112 KTAS, reliably.


Stalls are benign.


agreed.


The 140's hersheybar wings are lighter in roll than other cherokees (tapered
wings or the longer wings on the 180).


The gap seals make it even better!


Starting the airplane is easy - once you get the hang of "bumping" the starter.

If you have copper cables and a good starter, you shouldn't need to "bump" it.
I haven't bumped mine for years.




--

Jay Masino "Home is where My critters are"
http://www.JayMasino.com
http://www.OceanCityAirport.com
http://www.oc-Adolfos.com