Piper Turbo Arrow III (1977-1978)

The specifications on this page describe one airplane: the PA-28R-201T Turbo Arrow III, TCDS 2A13 Section XVIII -- the conventional-tail turbocharged Arrow, S/N 28R-7703001 through 28R-7803373 and 2803001 through 2803012. The T-tail PA-28RT-201T Turbo Arrow IV is Section XXI of the same certificate and carries a different figure on every airspeed limit; its numbers are in the Variants table below, and they are not the ones in this page's frontmatter.

The page was previously headed PA-28R/RT-201T, which is not a designation -- it is the Turbo Arrow III's and the Turbo Arrow IV's spliced together, and it stored the Turbo Arrow III's speeds beside the Turbo Arrow IV's fuselage length. That is fixed here.

The Piper Turbo Arrow is the turbocharged member of the tapered-wing Arrow line -- the same airframe with a Continental TSIO-360 in place of the naturally aspirated Arrow's Lycoming IO-360, producing 200 hp to a certificated ceiling of 20,000 ft. It aimed at Cessna T210, Bonanza A36TC and Mooney M20K buyers wanting high-altitude cross-country capability at a much lower acquisition cost.

Two certificated airplanes span the run:

• PA-28R-201T Turbo Arrow III (Section XVIII, approved 8 October 1976): conventional tail, Continental TSIO-360-F or TSIO-360-FB
• PA-28RT-201T Turbo Arrow IV (Section XXI, approved 13 November 1978): T-tail, Continental TSIO-360-FB

No production figure is stated on this page. Piper's serials in this era run 28R-YYLNNN with the sequence restarting inside each model year, so counting from the certificate's endpoints counts nothing, and the later 2803001-2803012 and 2831001-2831038 blocks carry no year at all. The highest year prefix on Section XXI is 86; year_range_end: 1989 is not supported by anything on 2A13 and is left in place only because the undated serial block cannot rule it out.

Why the Turbo Arrow III and Turbo Arrow IV share a page

Applying docs/CATALOG-SPLITTING-RULE.md in order:

• Step 1 (hard splits) does not fire. One piston engine each, four seats each, retractable gear on both, neither pressurized, and the same type certificate -- 2A13 -- for both.
• Step 2 (thresholds) does not fire. Maximum takeoff weight is 2,900 lb in both sections, fuel is 77 gallons in both, the engine is the same TSIO-360 family so the overhaul reserve is identical, and seats and baggage match. There is nothing to measure a spread on.
• Step 3 (the buyer test). This is the close call on this page and it deserves to be read rather than assumed. Against sharing: the T-tail is a different empennage that rotates late and needs a deliberately different takeoff technique, and the FAA thought the difference material enough to require the T-tail to be shown afresh against the stall paragraphs -- FAR 23.201, 23.203 and 23.207 appear in the PA-28RT-201T's certification basis and not in the PA-28R-201T's. The market discounts the T-tail, and marketplaces list "Turbo Arrow IV" as its own model. In favor of sharing: the pre-buy is the same airplane's (same gear pack, same turbocharger and exhaust inspection, same cylinders, same ADs), the insurance class is the same, the ownership cost is the same, and every field the recommendation engine scores on is identical between the two -- so a shared page cannot mis-score either one, which is the harm the splitting rule exists to prevent. Two pages would also repeat each other on maintenance, avionics and cost, which the rule warns against directly.

Resolved as one page, with the frontmatter describing the Turbo Arrow III and the Turbo Arrow IV carrying its own certificate figures in the Variants table. The choice of which variant the frontmatter describes is the conservative one on limits: every Turbo Arrow IV limit is higher than the Turbo Arrow III's, so a reader who takes the stored figures to a T-tail airplane is flying to speeds no airframe on this page exceeds. A reviewer who reads step 3 the other way has a real case, and the evidence for it is set out above rather than buried.

The Continental Engine Choice

The Turbo Arrow's Continental TSIO-360 is mechanically unrelated to the Arrow III's Lycoming IO-360:

• Continental's TSIO-360 was the available 200 hp turbocharged four-cylinder; Lycoming did not offer a turbocharged 360 cubic inch engine
• Continental's 1,800 hr TBO against Lycoming's 2,000 hr is a modest disadvantage
• Continental cylinder life on a turbocharged engine depends heavily on operating technique

2A13 Section XVIII approves TSIO-360-F or TSIO-360-FB on every serial, with no serial split between them; both are rated 200 hp at 2,575 rpm and 41 inches of manifold pressure for all operations. Section XXI approves the TSIO-360-FB alone.

There is no TSIO-360-KB on 2A13. The page previously named one in engine_model and described a "refined TSIO-360-KB" late Turbo Arrow IV; the only Continental engines this certificate approves for any PA-28 are the TSIO-360-F and the TSIO-360-FB. Both claims were removed.

The engine switch creates parts complexity for owners -- Turbo Arrows share neither cylinders nor accessories with naturally aspirated Arrow IIIs.

T-Tail (Turbo Arrow IV)

The Turbo Arrow IV's T-tail, introduced with Section XXI in 1979, is the single most discussed difference in the type:

• Distinctive appearance, and Piper claimed an aerodynamic gain
• The stabilator sits out of the propeller wash, so the airplane will not rotate until close to flying speed and needs more runway and a different technique than the conventional-tail airplane
• Reduced pitch authority at low speed, and a livelier discussion of deep-stall behavior than the conventional tail attracts
• The FAA required the T-tail airplane to be shown against FAR 23.201, 23.203 and 23.207 -- wings-level stalls, turning-flight stalls and stall warning -- paragraphs that do not appear in the Turbo Arrow III's certification basis
• Its loading envelope is different: the forward CG limit at 2,900 lb is +89.0 on the T-tail against +86.0 on the conventional tail
• Its placard speeds are all higher (see the Variants table), which is why they must never be read across

Many buyers prefer the conventional tail and the market prices it accordingly.

Every figure below is from TCDS 2A13 Rev 66, read section by section. The Turbo Arrow III row is the one the frontmatter describes.

Both sections carry a ramp weight of 2,912 lb, four seats at +80.5 and +118.1, 200 lb of baggage at +142.8, and a maximum operating altitude of 20,000 feet.

Fuel in this table is the certificate's TOTAL. 2A13 states 77 gallons in two wing tanks for both sections and never gives a usable figure in gallons; it puts unusable fuel in NOTE 1 as a weight, 30.0 lb. This is now resolved for the Turbo Arrow III from POH VB-800, which states outright (Sections 1.7 and 2.21) that of the 77-gallon total, 72 gallons are usable and 5 gallons (30.0 lb) are not -- reconciling with the certificate's weight figure at exactly 6.0 lb/gal. The frontmatter's fuel_capacity_gal now stores 72, the usable figure, and max_fuel_weight_lbs follows it at 432 lb. The Turbo Arrow IV row above is still the certificate's TOTAL and not yet corrected the same way -- it has no POH on file here.

Re-sourced 2026-09-08 from POH VB-800, the Turbo Arrow III's own handbook (see data/vault/raw/poh/pohvb800-pa28r-201t-turbo-arrow-iii-2026-09-07.md). A type certificate publishes no cruise speed, no fuel flow, no range, no climb and no runway distances, so the certificate-only pass could not touch any of this; the handbook is what closes it, and where the handbook itself declines a figure (nomograph only, no printed sea-level maximum-gross value) the field is now blank with a validator_exempt reason rather than carrying the old uncited number.

• Cruise: 154 KTAS at 75% power, 8,500 ft pressure altitude -- Piper's own printed worked example in Figure 5-21 (Speed Power, Performance Cruise), best-power mixture (100 deg F rich of peak EGT). This replaces the old uncited 165 KTAS at FL180, which described no documented flight.
• Fuel burn: 14 GPH -- the best-power fuel-flow box at 75% (Figure 5-19), the same mixture schedule as the cruise speed above.
• Range: 675 NM with reserve -- Figure 5-25 (Range, Best Power Mixture), same 8,500 ft / 75% / best-power condition, printed as "675 N.M. with reserve" (45-min reserve at 55% power) or 755 NM with no reserve. The arithmetic checks: 675 nm / 154 kt = 4.38 hr x 14 gph = 61.3 gal, plus an 8.3 gal reserve = 69.6 gal against 72 usable, with the balance in the climb/descent segments the chart says it includes.
• Economy alternative, not stored in frontmatter: leaning to peak EGT instead of best-power costs 3 kt (151 vs 154) but saves 2 gph and is worth 110 nm more range (785 NM with reserve) at the same 75% power and altitude. It is not stored as econ_cruise_* because those fields require a LOWER power setting than the reference row, and this is 75% both times.
• Climb, takeoff and landing distances: declined, not carried. See validator_exempt in frontmatter for each field and what the handbook prints instead -- Figure 5-13's only printed climb example is 900 fpm at 8,500 ft / 2,740 lb, and every Section 5 runway chart is a three-stage nomograph with no sea-level maximum-gross example in print.
• Useful load: 1,255 lbs (2,900 lb gross minus a 1,645 lb standard empty weight, both from POH 1.11/1.13 -- a 110 lb correction to empty weight and a matching 110 lb correction to useful load from the prior uncited 1,755 / 1,145).

Service ceiling remains unanswered. Both the certificate and the POH state only "Maximum Operating Altitude 20,000 feet" -- a certificated limit, not a service ceiling. The POH's climb chart (Figure 5-13) stops at 20,000 ft because the airplane is no longer approved to fly there, not because it has run out of climb margin. service_ceiling_ft is now blank with a validator_exempt reason rather than carrying an uncited 20,000.

The Turbo Arrow's 154 KTAS at 8,500 ft on 200 turbocharged horsepower is the whole argument for the type against the naturally aspirated Arrow III, at a much lower acquisition cost than a Bonanza A36TC or Mooney M20K.

Prices below are legacy catalogue estimates and are not sourced to a price guide.

The table previously carried a separate "Turbo Arrow IV late (1986-1989)" tier justified by a "refined TSIO-360-KB" engine. 2A13 approves no TSIO-360-KB for any PA-28, so that engine break does not exist and the two later rows are merged. Late Turbo Arrow IVs do command more than early ones; that is year and equipment, not a different powerplant.

Turbo Arrows trade at a $20,000-$55,000 premium over naturally aspirated Arrow IIIs of comparable year.

Universal Arrow concerns plus turbo-specific:

1. TSIO-360 cylinder condition: Continental turbocharged engines run hot; high CHT history shortens cylinder life dramatically.
2. Turbocharger condition: Inspect for shaft play, oil seepage. Turbo replacement: $5,000-$8,000.
3. Exhaust system condition: Turbo exhausts crack more frequently; inspect welds and slip joints carefully.
4. Wastegate operation: Verify smooth wastegate operation through full power range.
5. Cool-down practice: 3-5 min cool-down essential. Inconsistent cool-down history = shorter turbo life.
6. T-tail aerodynamics review (Arrow IV): Verify proper rigging; T-tail rigging issues can be subtle.