Piper Aircraft reported at last week’s AirVenture that FlightSafety International has signed an agreement to purchase 20 single-engine Piper Warrior and six single-engine Piper Arrow aircraft.
The new aircraft will begin to enter service at the FlightSafety Academy in Vero Beach, Florida, later this year.
This initial order for the trainer aircraft is part of a fleet replenishment initiative agreement between the two companies. FlightSafety has an option to acquire 20 additional Piper Warrior airplanes in 2016.
All of the aircraft will be equipped with Garmin G500 avionics suites and ADS-B. The aircraft will have satellite enhanced dual antenna traffic awareness technology, enabling one-second updates for traffic situational awareness. All aircraft come equipped with GTN 650, replacing the GNS 430.
Can you confirm they are actually getting Warriors? From what I understand Piper stopped making Warriors around 5 years ago. From what I understand the lowest brand new model you can now get is the Archer.
First I have no connection to the company so this is simply my guess.
The Piper press release states that they are Warriors, although the web site makes no mention of them being available. The last mention I recall about the Warrior,several years ago, was that the Warrior III was available in purchases of three or more but not as an individual sale. The lowest cost individual sale aircraft was the Archer.
I would suspect that they are Archers built with the smaller engine and different trim packages, much like the “new” Champs from American Champion Acft. are a Citabria with bolt on changes,engine,gear,rudder.