Piper Family Cruiser

The serial split at 14-490 is the only one on this certificate, and it moves the aft empty-weight CG limit forward by 1.2 inches because the front seats slide. It changes no field the catalogue stores and it is worth knowing about when a weight-and-balance sheet does not match the airplane's serial.

There are no engine variants. A-797 lists no Item 100-series optional engine, which is unusual in this family — A-691 gives the PA-11 six eligible engines and A-780 gives the PA-12 one option plus a long STC list behind it. Any PA-14 with something other than a Lycoming O-235-C1 is flying on an STC, and that STC is the paperwork to ask for.

Read the warning above first. Everything with a number in this section is a compendium's figure.

Aerofiles gives the PA-14 a maximum speed of 123 mph, a cruise of 110 mph and a stall of 44 mph, with 500 statute miles of range and 850 lb of useful load — 96 knots of cruise, 434 nautical miles and a 38-knot stall.

The arithmetic is at least self-consistent. Thirty-five gallons at a plausible 7 gph is 5.0 hours, and 5.0 hours at 110 mph is 550 statute miles, so a 500 sm figure sits inside what the fuel allows with a reserve left over. That is not a source and it is not a check on the number; it is the reason the number is not obviously wrong. The page's previous 364 nm reconciled with nothing.

The fuel capacity was wrong by five gallons and it moved two other fields. A-797 says 35 gallons in two 17.5-gallon wing tanks; the page said 30. Per runbook rule 17, max_fuel_weight_lbs had to follow — 210 lb, not 180 — because otherwise every payload figure on the page inherits the error.

Eighty pounds of baggage is the largest allowance in this family by four times (the J-3 and PA-11 carry 20, the PA-12 41), and it is normal-category only.

115 horsepower is a TAKEOFF rating. A-797 states "Take-off, 2800 r.p.m. (115 hp)" and stops; it publishes no continuous limit. The same engine on the PA-12's certificate carries both — 115 takeoff, 108 continuous — so the continuous rating is 108 hp. The page stores 115 because that is what this airplane's certificate says, but a buyer computing cruise power should be working from 108.

115 hp for 1,850 lb is 16 lb per horsepower — the highest power loading of the five airplanes in this group, and the PA-14's real limitation. Four seats and a 115 hp engine is a combination that works when the seats are not all full.

850 lb of useful load, 35 gallons and four seats. The PA-14 carries more than any other airplane in this group and it does not carry four adults and full fuel — which is the arithmetic every four-seat airplane of this era fails, and worth working through before buying one as a family machine.

Scenario 1: Two occupants, full fuel, touring

This is the airplane's best configuration and it is genuinely good. Two adults, full fuel, the full 80 lb baggage allowance, 180 lb still in hand, and 434 nautical miles of still-air range. Nothing else in this group of five comes close.

Scenario 2: Four occupants, full fuel

Sixty pounds over gross, with no baggage at all, on four FAA-standard adults. Four seats do not mean four people and full fuel, and on 115 horsepower they would not want to be.

Scenario 3: Four occupants, reduced fuel

Eleven gallons out and no bags. That is what four seats actually buys: a 300 nm trip with four people and nothing else, at 96 knots, on an engine rated 115 hp for takeoff and 108 continuous. It works, and it is not a lot of margin.

Scenario 4: Two occupants, reduced fuel, local

The rear bench is a load-carrying station at +42, well aft of the (+9.0) to (+21.0) normal-category CG range's datum, so work the moment and not just the weight on any load like this one.

Against the PA-12 it was stretched from

The PA-14 is a better airplane and a worse purchase, and the last row is why. One more seat, 15 more horsepower, 100 lb more gross weight, twice the baggage and flaps — against three gallons less fuel, 87 fewer nautical miles, and a fleet one-sixteenth the size with the parts supply that implies. If a fourth seat is not the point, buy the PA-12.

Flight Training (3/10): Four seats, flaps, no electrical system on most examples, and a rare airframe nobody wants to bend. It would teach tailwheel handling perfectly well and there is no reason to use one.

Backcountry (5/10): Real potential — four seats, 850 lb of useful load, 35 gallons and flaps, on a Cub airframe — held back hard by 115 horsepower and by the parts supply behind 232 airframes. A PA-14 that has been re-engined is a serious machine; a stock one is under-powered for high or hot work, and this catalogue has no performance figure for either.

Business Travel (2/10): 96 knots, usually no radio, no IFR capability.

Aerobatics (1/10): Not approved in either category.

Cross-Country (4/10): 434 nm at 96 knots with four seats and 80 lb of baggage is genuinely useful touring, and it is the best cross-country figure of the five airplanes here. Held back by the absence of an IFR panel and by the payload arithmetic below, which does not allow four adults and full fuel.

Cargo Hauling (3/10): 80 lb of baggage by the certificate and a rear bench that comes out. On 850 lb of useful load that is a genuinely useful hauler for its size.

Local Fun (7/10): All the Cub character with room for the family it was named after.

Surveying (3/10): Slow, good visibility, four seats. No systems.

The same three tiers as the rest of the family, with one practical difference: the PA-14 has the useful load to carry a panel, where the J-3 and PA-11 do not.

Purist ($0): Handheld radio, portable GPS. How most survivors fly.

Minimal electrical ($2,000-$5,000): A light electrical system, one COM and a wingtip ADS-B Out device.

Panel-mounted ($5,000-$15,000): COM, ADS-B Out transponder, panel GPS. Rare on a PA-14 simply because there are so few of them, not because it is difficult.

This section is deliberately short, and the shortness is the finding. A-797 names no optional engine and no optional equipment beyond the basics, and no source read in this pass lists a single STC number for the PA-14 by number. Modifications certainly exist — the type shares wings, gear and much structure with the PA-12, whose STC catalogue Aviation Consumer describes as "hundreds" — but this catalogue has no source for which of them are approved on a PA-14, and it will not name one it cannot cite.

What can be said from the certificate:

• The airplane already has flaps, which most of the PA-12 flap STCs exist to add. A-797 publishes a flaps-extended limit of 85 mph (74 knots).
• Skis are covered by the certificate itself, in Item 401(b), and the performance note there is the only performance statement A-797 makes.
• Any engine other than the Lycoming O-235-C1 is an STC installation, since the certificate lists no alternative. Ask for the 337 and the STC number.

Parts Availability -- Limited

232 built. The PA-14 shares wings, tail surfaces, gear and much of its structure with the PA-12, which is well supported by Univair, and that carries most of it. What it does not carry is the widened fuselage, the four-seat interior structure, the doors and the cowling — and there is no salvage pool of any depth behind those.

Mechanic Familiarity -- Uncommon

The airframe is simple and any A&P with fabric experience can work on it. The difficulty is that few have seen one, and the type-specific knowledge that exists lives in the Cub and short-wing communities rather than in a shop manual — the FAA's certificate holder is a corporation in Bellingham, Washington, not a manufacturer with a support desk.

Annual Cost Range

The fuel line is deliberately blank. No source publishes a fuel burn for the PA-14 and this page will not invent one; the PA-12's 6 gph is a 100 hp airplane's figure and this is a 115 hp airplane carrying 700 lb more when loaded. An owner's own logs — or the Owner's Manual, for the price of a tankful — are the only honest answer.

Expensive Maintenance Items

• Fabric re-cover on the largest airframe in this group.
• Engine overhaul, $35,000 for the O-235 class per the house reference.
• Anything PA-14-specific, because there is no second-hand supply.
• Wing lift struts, if AD 2015-08-04 cannot be answered by inspection.
• Rudder replacement, AD 2025-02-11: $3,000 on the FAA's estimate, due 2030.

The market for this airplane is one airplane deep.

On 7 September 2026, AeroGurus listed exactly one PA-14 for sale anywhere in the world: a 1948 airframe, N4241H, with 11,117 hours total time, in Alaska, asking $100,000. Controller returned none. Trade-A-Plane could not be read.

The stored typical of $90,000 is that one asking price less the standing 10 percent allowance, from a sample of one, and the page says so.

The price_min_usd of $40,000 and price_max_usd of $110,000 are AeroGurus' reference band rather than observed listings, and they should be read with suspicion: the identical band, to the dollar, appears on that site's PA-11 Cub Special page — a two-seat airplane with a different engine. Two different models sharing a reference price exactly looks like a family default, not a valuation. AeroGurus' own commentary is at least honest about the direction: "The PA-14 is relatively scarce, and clean four-seat examples can command a premium among Cub-family enthusiasts."

No Vref or Aircraft Bluebook value is obtainable; both sell values by subscription. This is the page in the family a subscription would most improve, after the missing Owner's Manual.

Key value drivers

• Scarcity cuts both ways. 232 built means a clean one is hard to replace and a broken one is hard to fix.
• Engine. A stock 115 hp airplane and a 150 or 160 hp conversion are different propositions; the conversion also shortens the rudder AD clock.
• Fabric condition.
• AD 2025-02-11 compliance, which is $3,000 and due in 2030 on a stock airplane — sooner on a converted one.
• Complete 337 package, which on a type with no factory engine options is the whole story of the airplane.
• Location. The one airplane on the market is in Alaska, which is where four-seat Cub derivatives are worth the most.

Airworthiness Directives

Every number below comes from the FAA's own AD index (adlistpipercubs).

AD 2025-02-11 — rudder posts — and the PA-14 is one of the two airplanes that caused it. Effective 20 March 2025, docket FAA-2023-1893. The second of the two in-flight rudder failures behind the rule was a PA-14 on floats in Alaska in 2021; the pilot reported needing "a very large right rudder input" to keep the airplane straight and landed safely.

PA-14 is named in the applicability table under FS 2002 Corporation. Any rudder whose post is not 4130N low-alloy steel must be replaced, and the FAA estimates $3,000 per airplane. A stock 115 hp PA-14 with no rudder-post beacon is Category III — over 100 hp and under 150 — which is five years, so 20 March 2030. A rudder-post beacon moves it to Category II (2028); a 150 hp or larger conversion does the same, and both together make it Category I, due 20 March 2027.

The Short Wing Piper Club's comment on the rule notes that the PA-14 involved had a 160 hp engine fitted, which is a point worth raising with a seller of a converted airplane.

AD 2015-08-04 — "Wings" — is the current wing lift strut AD. Effective 3 June 2015, docket FAA-2014-1083, naming PA-14. It supersedes 99-01-05 R1, 99-01-05 and 93-10-06, "Corroded Wing Lift Struts or Cracked Forks", which is the number older sources still quote.

AD 85-06-04 "Fuel Tank" (effective 4 May 1985), AD 78-10-03 "Fuel Venting" and AD 68-05-01 "Exhaust Mufflers" all name the PA-14, as do AD 74-17-04 "Fabric Reinforcement", AD 60-01-07 "Tail Brace Wires" and AD 49-27-02 "Aileron Bellcrank Castings".

One AD names the PA-14 in its title and not in its applicability. AD 76-06-06, "PA-14 Wing Flaps", applies to the PA-12 and PA-12S — PA-14 flaps are a common STC installation on a PA-12 and the AD reaches the airplane they are fitted to. It is recorded here so that a PA-14 owner who finds the title in a search does not conclude it applies to him.

This is not a compliance list, and engine ADs are not included — those are issued against the Lycoming type certificate and were not searched here.

Common Pre-Buy Red Flags

Rarity is the problem behind all the others. With 232 built, a PA-14 that needs a PA-14-specific part is in a different position from a Cub that needs a Cub part, and the price of the airplane should reflect that.

Fabric condition, as on every airplane in this family, on a larger airframe than a Cub's.

Fuselage tube corrosion, particularly the lower longerons at the tail post where water collects.

Wing struts and forks, per AD 2015-08-04. Sealed replacement struts are the usual terminating answer.

The rudder, per AD 2025-02-11 — and on this type specifically, because a PA-14 is one of the two airplanes whose rudder actually failed.

Aileron bellcranks, per AD 49-27-02. Cast aluminum bellcranks crack.

Engine paperwork. A-797 lists no optional engine, so anything other than an O-235-C1 needs an STC and a 337. Verify both, and check whether the modification moves the airplane into a shorter rudder-AD compliance category.

Weight and balance against the serial number. The empty-weight CG range differs above and below S/N 14-490, and a sheet computed against the wrong range is a real finding.

The bands below are the April 2026 generated pass, from reference/insurance-costs.md's tailwheel fixed-gear class. They are not quotes for this type and were not re-sourced in this pass.

Two type-specific underwriting notes, neither sourced: a four-seat airplane carries more liability exposure than a two-seat one, and a rare airframe with a thin parts supply is slower and dearer to repair after a minor accident, which some carriers price for.

See GA Insurance Underwriting for context.