Piper Cherokee Six 260 (1965-1978)

The PA-32-260 is the original Cherokee Six: a six-seat, fixed-gear, low-wing single approved 4 March 1965, built on a stretched and widened Cherokee airframe with a carbureted 260 hp Lycoming O-540-E4B5 and a 3,400 lb gross weight. It ran for fourteen model years, to 1978, alongside the 300 hp version from 1966 onward.

It is a hauler first. The wide flat-floored cabin, the optional right-side cargo door and a useful load in the 1,600 lb region are the whole argument for the type, and the 260 gives up nothing to the 300 on any of them: identical gross weight, identical 200 lb baggage limit, identical seats, identical airspeed limits, identical wing.

What it gives up is power. Forty horsepower on a 3,400 lb airplane is 15%, and it shows exactly where you would expect — climb at gross, hot-and-high departures, and the last 10 knots of cruise. A 260 is a fine airplane at sea level with four aboard and a genuinely marginal one at 3,400 lb out of a 6,000 ft strip on a summer afternoon. That is the buying decision, and it is why this page is separate.

One thing the 260 has that no other PA-32 does: a fixed-pitch propeller option. NOTE 8 of the certificate permits a McCauley 1P235PFA82 fixed-pitch propeller on S/N 32-1 through 32-1297 and 32-7100001 through 32-7200045 — the 1965 through early-1972 airplanes. No other model on A3SO may carry one. A fixed-pitch airframe has no propeller governor and no constant-speed propeller overhaul to reserve for, and it is a simpler airplane to fly and to maintain, at some cost in climb and cruise. Check which propeller is fitted before you budget.

Every row below is from TCDS A3SO. The frontmatter describes the PA-32-260.

There is no fixed-gear Lance and no PA-32-300T. The conflated page listed both as variants of the Cherokee Six. Neither designation appears on A3SO or in the FAA's model list for the certificate. The Lance is the retractable PA-32R-300, and the turbocharged Lance is the retractable, T-tailed PA-32RT-300T Turbo Lance II.

The 260 has no serial split on any stored field. Its fuel capacity, airspeed limits, gross weight, seats and baggage are single figures covering every serial in Section I. The only splits are the propeller option above and the nose-wheel travel and centering-spring requirements in NOTE 5, neither of which the catalogue stores.

Read this section as an indication, not as book numbers. Nothing in it is sourced.

The frontmatter's 135 KTAS, 14 GPH, 800 fpm and 780 nm are the figures the conflated page stated for the 260 in its own prose and payload table. They are generation-pass numbers with no citation behind them, kept because a page with no cruise speed cannot be scored or filtered at all. The power setting they describe is not recorded, which is why cruise_percent_bhp and cruise_altitude_ft are left blank rather than assumed.

Service ceiling, stall speeds, best-angle and best-rate speeds, best glide, and all four runway distances are blank on this page. The conflated page gave only the 300's figures for each, and a 260 hp airplane at the same 3,400 lb gross weight does not share a 300 hp airplane's climb or takeoff numbers. The PA-32-260 AFM (VB-152, VB-156, VB-478, VB-561) or POH VB-820, listed by serial effectivity in the certificate's own Equipment table, is what would fill them.

The certificated limits are sourced, and they are identical to the 300's:

Take the bracketed knots. The certificate prints mph first; the conflated page's vne_kias: 192 matched neither column. The limits are calibrated, and A3SO's equivalent safety finding for CAR 3.757 — the finding that would allow indicated to stand in for calibrated — does not extend to the PA-32-260. They are stored as published rather than converted, because converting them would be a guess.

Maneuvering speed is neither weight-scheduled nor serial-split on this model, so 130 knots CAS is the figure without qualification.

Built on the frontmatter's 1,611 lb useful load, which is an unsourced generation-pass figure inherited from the conflated page's own PA-32-260 payload row. Empty weight is deliberately blank on this page, so these scenarios cannot be checked against a weighed airframe — weigh the actual airplane before planning a load. Fuel is figured at 6.0 lb/gal, the density this certificate's own NOTE 1 arithmetic implies.

The 260 carries what the 300 carries. Same gross weight, same tanks, same baggage limit, and a slightly lighter engine, so if anything marginally more payload. The difference is entirely in how it gets that load off a runway and up to altitude.

And the seven-place restriction applies without exception here: with Kit 69072-3 fitted, anything above 3,112 lb must be fuel, so people and bags are capped regardless of what the useful load says.

Related aircraft: Piper Cherokee Six 300, Piper Lance, Piper Saratoga (fixed gear), cessna-u206-pre-litigation, piper-pa28-235-cherokee

These scores were inherited from the conflated page and have not been re-scored for the 260. They are opinions governed by the rubrics in missions/, and re-scoring them without working those rubrics would substitute one arbitrary number for another. Read them as the family's scores; the 260's lower power argues for a point or two off the speed-driven ones.

• Flight Training (2/10): Too large and too thirsty for primary instruction. Still requires a high-performance endorsement — 260 hp is over the 200 hp threshold.
• Backcountry (5/10): Big load, fixed gear, low wing. Improved grass yes, genuinely rough strips no.
• Business Travel (6/10): Comfortable and capable, but slower than the 300 and much slower than a retractable.
• Aerobatics (1/10): Normal category. NOTE 2's placard: "NO ACROBATIC MANEUVERS, INCLUDING SPINS, APPROVED."
• Cross-Country (8/10): Six seats and a large load at a low purchase price.
• Cargo Hauling (9/10): Same 3,400 lb gross weight, same cargo door, same 200 lb baggage limit as the 300 — the load-carrying case is unchanged. What changes is how it climbs once loaded.
• Local Fun (3/10): 14 GPH is not a Sunday-morning airplane, though it is the cheapest PA-32 to run.
• Surveying (4/10): Low wing blocks the view down.

The 260 rarely justifies a full glass retrofit. A $60,000 panel on a $110,000 airframe is money you will not recover, which is the main practical difference from the 300 — the same upgrade on a faster, more valuable airframe comes closer to paying for itself. Most 260s are best bought with the panel you want already in them.

See Avionics Pricing Reference.

The 300 hp conversion is the modification that defines this airplane's market. It transforms the airplane and it almost never pays for itself: a converted 260 does not command a 300's price, because a buyer who wants 300 hp buys a factory 300. Consider it if you already own the airplane and the engine is out; do not buy a 260 intending to convert it.

Parts (excellent). Lycoming 540-series parts are among the most available in aviation, and the carbureted O-540 is if anything simpler to support than the injected version. Piper airframe parts come through the factory, aftermarket suppliers and a deep salvage network.

Mechanics (common). Every general aviation A&P has seen a Cherokee. Simple construction, ubiquitous engine, no injection system to set up.

Annual cost:

• Routine annual: $2,500-$4,000
• Annual with typical squawks: $4,000-$8,000
• Engine reserve: $26/hour ($52,000 ÷ 2,000 TBO)
• Propeller reserve: about $3/hour on a constant-speed airplane, nil on a NOTE 8 fixed-pitch airframe
• All-in at 100 hours a year: $16,000-$22,000

Expensive items: O-540 overhaul $52,000 at national specialty pricing (a local shop reusing serviceable cylinders runs 30-50% below that) · wing spar work, five figures per wing · exhaust system $3,000-$5,000 · fuel bladders $2,000-$4,000 per tank · constant-speed propeller overhaul $3,000-$5,000.

The overhaul figure is the house number from reference/engine-overhaul-pricing.md, which quotes one price for the O-540 and IO-540 alike. It is not a per-airplane quote.

The price block is not sourced. It is the conflated page's own PA-32-260 valuation row ($80,000-$160,000) with the typical set at its midpoint. Asking prices are perishable and this is a band, not a quote.

Value adds: cargo door +$5,000-$10,000 · speed mods +$3,000-$5,000 · fresh engine +$20,000-$30,000 · modern panel +$20,000-$40,000 (less of a premium than on a 300).

Value detractors: high spar time -20-40% · run-out engine -$20,000-$30,000 · corrosion history -15-25% · legacy avionics -$10,000-$20,000.

Against a 300, expect to pay roughly 20-25% less for a comparable airframe, which is the honest reason to buy one: identical cabin, identical load, identical limits, meaningfully less money, and less climb.

Airworthiness directives. The one that dominates PA-32 valuation is the FAA's main wing spar directive covering the PA-28 and PA-32 families, which brought in a factored-service-hours calculation, an eddy-current inspection of the lower spar cap bolt holes at the threshold, and a life limit on unmodified spars.

The previous version of this page cited three AD numbers that are not valid FAA AD numbers — "AD 2024-21-XX", "AD 2020-25690" and "AD 2010-18012". FAA directives are numbered YYYY-NN-NN; two of those are not, and the third carries a literal "XX" placeholder. They have been removed rather than corrected. Confirm the applicable AD list for a specific serial against the FAA's own AD database — do not take AD numbers from this page.

Common problems:

• Wing spar condition. The biggest pre-buy item on any Cherokee-family airframe. Get the factored hours computed and the inspection status in writing.
• Carburetor ice. This is the 260's own item and the 300 does not have it. A carbureted O-540 in a descent at low power is a classic carb-ice setup; check the carb heat box, its ducting and its control rigging carefully, and budget for a carb temperature gauge if there is not one.
• Exhaust system cracks. The 540 exhaust cracks at slip joints and welds. $3,000-$5,000 every 800-1,200 hours.
• Fuel bladder leaks. Four tanks, four bladders, seeping at seams and sender units. $2,000-$4,000 per tank.
• Nose gear shimmy, and NOTE 5's centering springs: S/N 32-1 through 32-7700023 require two nose wheel centering springs (P/N 67168) if the wheel fairings are removed; S/N 32-7800001 through 32-7800008 additionally require the nose gear strut fairing (P/N 37891) removed when the wheel fairing is off, and a rudder centering spring (P/N 37929-2) fitted. These get missed when fairings come off for maintenance and do not go back on.
• Seat rail pin engagement. Recurring Cherokee-family item.
• Door and cargo door seals. $500-$1,000.

• Hull: the same class as the 300 — high_performance_fixed_gear — so the same 1.0-1.8% of hull value. The stored $2,000 is that rate applied to this variant's lower typical hull value, not a quote; see reference/insurance-costs.md, where BWI's published band for a fixed-gear single is $1,200-$2,800 at a $100k hull and Trent's own fixed-gear binder came in at 0.91%.
• Liability ($1M smooth): $800-$1,200/year.
• Pilot requirements: typically 300+ hours total, 25+ in type, and a high-performance endorsement — 260 hp is over the 200 hp threshold, so this is not a step-up airplane you can fly on a bare private certificate.
• In your favor: fixed gear, huge fleet, docile handling, lower hull value.
• Against you: heavy, high-performance, and fifty to sixty years old.

See GA Insurance Underwriting.