Piper PA-28 Cherokee

Piper · United States · first flew 1960 · light aircraft

Piper's low-wing answer to the Cessna 172, the PA-28 Cherokee family is one of the most common light training and touring aircraft in the world.

Recognition (WEFT)

W — Wings	Low-mounted, tapered
E — Engines	1 × piston, nose-mounted
F — Fuselage	Low-set wing beneath the fuselage
T — Tail	Conventional

WEFT is AircraftIQ's four-point recognition method — how it works.

Spot it by:

Low-set wing beneath the fuselage
Single nose propeller and a simple two/four-seat cabin
Fixed tricycle undercarriage

Where the Cessna 172 has a high strutted wing, the PA-28 carries its wing low on the fuselage with no struts. A single nose propeller, fixed tricycle gear and a stabilator (all-moving tailplane) complete the picture.

Specifications

The Piper PA-28 Cherokee has a length of 7.09 m (23 ft).
It has a wingspan of 9.14 m (30 ft).
Its maximum speed is 235 km/h (146 mph).
Typical crew: 1 pilot + up to 3 passengers.

Figures are for the representative variant described above; marks differ. See how AircraftIQ sources figures.

History

Piper introduced the PA-28 Cherokee in 1960 as a simple, economical low-wing monoplane, and it has remained in near-continuous production ever since. Successive models added more power, longer fuselages and tapered wings, but the basic friendly handling endured. Tens of thousands have been built.

Variants

The family spans the Cherokee 140/150/180, the tapered-wing Warrior and Archer, the higher-performance Arrow with retractable gear, and the Dakota. Most carry four seats; engine sizes and wing planforms vary by model.

Where you'll see it

The Cherokee is a staple of British flying clubs and schools, seen at light aerodromes from Sywell to Goodwood. If a small low-wing single is doing circuits at your local field, it is very likely a PA-28 Warrior or Archer.

In depth

Piper's answer to the high-wing Cessna was to go the opposite way, and the reasoning behind the low wing is worth unpicking because it shapes everything about how a PA-28 flies and is built. A low wing lets the main spar pass beneath the cabin floor rather than over the occupants' heads, which simplifies the structure of a monocoque fuselage and puts the strongest part of the airframe under the seats. It also gives owners a wing to walk on: access to the cabin is over the trailing edge and along the root, and there is only one door, on the right, so everyone boards across the wing. On landing the low wing sits closer to the runway and generates a firmer cushion of ground effect in the flare, which many pilots describe as a more planted, settled feel in the last few feet than a high-wing type gives.

The single most useful identification skill on the PA-28 family is reading the wing planform. The original Cherokees wore a constant-chord rectangular wing, universally nicknamed the Hershey bar for its flat, slab-sided shape; seen from above or below it is an unmistakable rectangle with squared tips. From the mid-1970s Piper introduced a tapered wing on the Warrior and later Archer, with a longer span and a straight-tapered outer section that improves low-speed behaviour and cruise efficiency. So the quick call is simple: rectangular plan means an early Cherokee 140/150/180; a tapered leading and trailing edge means a Warrior, Archer or their descendants. That single glance sorts most of the fleet before you ever read a registration.

The tail is the other Piper signature. Instead of a fixed horizontal stabiliser with a hinged elevator, the PA-28 uses a stabilator: the entire horizontal tail surface pivots as one all-moving unit, with a small anti-servo tab on its trailing edge to give the controls artificial feel and prevent over-sensitivity. In the air this tends to feel light and responsive in pitch, and the anti-servo tab is what stops that lightness becoming twitchy. Spotters can often see the stabilator's single pivot line and the tab, which distinguishes the tail from a conventional elevator hinge.

One variant demands special attention: the Arrow. Mechanically it is a PA-28 with retractable tricycle gear and usually a constant-speed propeller, aimed at pilots stepping up to complex aircraft. On the ground it looks like any other Cherokee-derived airframe, but in flight the giveaway is the absence of that fixed nosewheel and mainwheels hanging below the belly; clean underneath, it is an Arrow, and the constant-speed propeller and often a slightly more powerful engine complete the picture. Every fixed-gear Warrior, Archer, Cherokee and Dakota keeps its wheels down and locked in plain sight.

The production story sits behind all of this. Piper built the line first at Lock Haven in Pennsylvania, the company's long-time home on the Susquehanna, before shifting light-aircraft manufacture to Vero Beach in Florida, where the type has been produced for decades since. That continuity is why the family stretches across so many model names for what is recognisably one airframe evolving in place. For the spotter the encounter is much the same as with the rival Cessna: British training airfields and aero clubs run them hard, and a weekend circuit of strips from Sywell to Goodwood will turn up Warriors and Archers in club colours. In the United States they crowd the smaller airports, the low wing and single right-hand door marking them out across the ramp from the high-wing crowd parked alongside.

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