Meet 29 Whiskey

A Brief History#

29 Whiskey is an all-original 1966 Piper PA-32-260 "Cherokee Six", Serial # 32-531. I'm the 4th owner of this wonderful airplane. It was originally purchased by Robert C Marquis of NY in April 1966. Mr. Marquis sold it to William Clinger II of PA in 1970. Mr. Clinger owned 29W (later adding his son as a partner) and kept it at N57 for 40 years! In 2010, the Clingers sold her to Brock Harper of PA. Brock enjoyed frequent trips with his family to their beach house in NJ as well as transporting his children to/from college, all while earning his instrument and commercial ratings. In September 2021, I was lucky enough to be on the search for a Cherokee Six when Brock decided to sell. She was exactly what I had been looking for, at my home airport, for much less than I had expected to pay!

Exterior#

I'm not gonna lie. She's rough. The paint is original from 1966 and much of it is worn off, the fiberglass on the tip tanks is showing through and the edges around the cowling a chipped and cracked. A paint job is in her very near future.

Interior#

The interior is also vintage 1966, and while not as bad as the exterior, it's far from nice. The front seats have the rips on the seat bottoms you'd expect in a 55 year old airplane but are hidden by sheepskin covers. The pilot's side wall panel has detached at the top and is sagging a bit. All of the plastics have faded and yellowed. The carpet was replaced by the previous owner, but still has several stains. I plan to install an interior kit from Airtex this winter.

Avionics & Instrumentation#

29 Whiskey is modestly equipped, yet fully capable of the flying the missions I will be flying. The only real shortcoming is the non-WAAS GNS430 is not capable of LPV approaches or giving me glideslope guidance on RNAV approaches. The Century IIB autopilot is old and basic, but works great for wing-leveling, holding a heading and following the OBS via VOR, GPS or ILS inputs. While altitude hold would be nice, I like hand-flying and only plan on using the autopilot for workload reduction.

The rest of the instrumentation is factory original. The EGT gauge is currently INOP. Many of the gauges' panel lights do not work, but are still visible with overhead red lighting. I also hate the factory placement of engine instruments at the far right side of the panel. I feel a digital engine monitor in my future.

Engine#

The biggest selling point for me was the 260HP O-540 is a Lycoming factory reman done in 2018 with only 220 hrs on it! Time since major overhaul, or more importantly time until next overhaul, is one of the most important factors in an aircraft's value. A factory remanufactured engine resets the engine logbook to 0, as if the aircraft is brand new. For an O-540, this means I should expect 2000+ hours of tach time before I have to face the expense of doing it again. Of course, things happen before the TBO time, but a factory new engine is the best case for expectations.

Planned Updates#

Now that I've entered the brave new world of sole-ownership, budgeting for updates and upgrades will be 100% my decision and responsibility. While it's fun to admire other PA-32s on the internet, my updates will have to be well-planned and driven mostly by necessity. Here's a list of my planned updates.