Neither of the two Warriors at my school have air conditioning. We always have to leave the door open during taxi.

Being out of general aviation for many years, I'm curious as to what is the going rate of a 172 or a Warrior or Archer these days? Do they still make new pipers, I know they make new 172's? I still have my CFI and want to get current again to take my kids up.

Thanks.

The full range of aviation anomalies can be better demonstrated, taught and mastered in a Cessna 172. I'm speaking of stalls and spin avoidance training in particular. This comes from a guy who gave way too many umpteenth thousands of hours of instruction in both.

Piper designed the Cherokee almost too well for liability reasons. As a result, coordinated full stall breaks are rarely similar to the full stall breaks Cessnas demonstrate. They are more like shaking imminent stalls. Kudos to them for the design but students are provided a disservice when their experiences are limited by aircraft design & placards that prevent the recognition and recovery from spin entries.

Did lots of instruction in both, and my observation is that the Cessna is the better trainer if only because the Piper is slightly easier to fly. I had several students transition from one to the other, and the guys who learned in high-wings seemed to have an easier time transitioning to the low-wings than low-wing to high-wing.

I do have to admit, though, if I were buying my own I would lean to the Piper if the $$$ was the same.

There's good and bad with each. Maybe the best idea is to go out in each of them and decide which one you like better.

My two cents. After 40 years in aviation, 38 of those as CFI, having learned from the beginning in all Cessna aircraft, I will emphatically say I am a PIPER fan! Thousands of hours in all make and models of both brands, and I am still a PIPER fan. Cessna is a great plane to learn all the basics in, but PIPER is easier to fly in my opinion (going to get a lot of flak for that). BTW, at the school that I teach at (now part-time), the going rate (non-club) for a 172 or PA28-161 is $95/hr (wet). Chicago area.

thanks for the info. Wow that's cheaper than I thought especially wet.

$105 Wet here in Houston

Thanks for the info.

If your ultimate goal is a mainline pilot gig, you DEFINITELY should do the piper. They want that low wing time since that's what they fly.




Just a joke. Go with the cheapest or most comfortable.

I'm taking courses at CCBC and yesterday one of the students in the class asked this same question. The Professor answered that he believes "the Cessna 172 is the best trainer to start out on because it will make a pilot much better at landings." He went into more detail that the 172 landing gear is more spring like and it will bounce the plane back up if you don't make a perfect landing. He said the 150/152s are nice because they are cheap, and the Pipers give you a little different feel because they are low wing, but that he really feels aspiring pilots should start out on the 172, then move to another airframe if they would like once their landings are proficient.

He is a former Airbus A320, Boeing 757 Captain with over 10,000 hours, 4000 of which are flight instructing, both for the airlines and for GA. I want to say he said about 1400 hours of his instructing hours are GA. He is currently a Professor at CCBC and flight instructing many of the students on his off time.