Piper Cherokee Six 300 (1966-1979)

The PA-32-300 Cherokee Six is a six-seat, fixed-gear, low-wing single built from 1966 to 1979 — a stretched, widened Cherokee with a 300 hp fuel-injected Lycoming IO-540 on the nose and a 3,400 lb gross weight. It is the airplane that earned the Cherokee Six its reputation as the "poor man's Bonanza": a genuinely large cabin, an optional double cargo door, and a useful load over 1,600 lb, at a fraction of a Beechcraft A36's price.

The certificate is unusually blunt about what separates it from the 260:

Same as Model PA-32-260 except for engine installation and fuel system.

That is the whole difference — a Bendix RSA-10ED1 servo instead of a carburetor, 40 more horsepower, and (on the last 290 airplanes) a bigger fuel system. Everything else on the sheet is identical: the same wing, the same 3,400 lb gross weight, the same 200 lb baggage limit, the same seats, the same control travels and the same airspeed limits.

Production ran to 1979, after which the fixed-gear line continued as the tapered-wing PA-32-301 Saratoga and the retractable line as the PA-32R-300 Lance.

Its natural rival is the Cessna U206 Stationair. The low-wing Piper wins on cabin comfort and car-like entry; the high-wing Cessna wins on rough-field and float work.

Every row below is from TCDS A3SO. The frontmatter describes the PA-32-300, 84-gallon serials.

The fuel split is the one that matters, and it is a rule 23 call. The 84-gallon block covers thirteen model years, 1966 through 1978. The 98-gallon block covers the 1979 model year alone — a single within-year serial sequence capped at 290 airplanes. The frontmatter stores the 84-gallon block because that is what nearly the whole fleet carries; a 1979 airplane carries 94 usable and about an hour more endurance.

Two rows that used to be on this page have been removed because they do not exist. The old page listed a "PA-32-300 Lance (fixed gear)" and a "PA-32-300T Turbo Lance". Neither designation appears on A3SO or anywhere in the FAA's model list for this certificate. The Lance is the retractable PA-32R-300, and the turbocharged Lance is the PA-32RT-300T Turbo Lance II — also retractable, also T-tailed. There was never a fixed-gear Lance.

None of the figures in this section is sourced. They are inherited from the generation pass and should be read as an indication, not as book numbers.

The frontmatter cruise of 146 KTAS is quoted at 75% power with about 16 GPH, though the page does not record the altitude that setting was flown at, so cruise_percent_bhp and cruise_altitude_ft are deliberately left blank rather than asserted. Owners generally report 140-142 knots at a 65% setting on 14-15 GPH.

Rate of climb at gross is given as 1,050 fpm and service ceiling as 16,250 ft. Neither is a certificate figure; A3SO states no ceiling for any PA-32.

Treat the 1,000 ft landing-over-50-ft figure with particular suspicion. The catalogue's own borrowed-figure detector flags it as shared with five other airplanes spanning a 5.7x weight range, from a 1,320 lb Evektor SportStar to a 7,500 lb P-750, which is not a distance six airplanes that different can share. It is kept rather than deleted only because deleting it would leave nothing at all; the POH landing chart is what should replace it.

The certificated limits, which are sourced, are worth knowing separately from the performance:

Two things about that table. First, the knots figure is the bracketed one — the certificate prints mph first, and the old page's vne_kias: 192 matched neither column. Second, the limits are calibrated, and A3SO's equivalent safety finding for CAR 3.757 (the rule that would let indicated stand in for calibrated) covers only the 1979 serials, not the rest of the run. They are stored as published rather than converted, because converting them would be a guess; the POH prints KCAS beside KIAS and is what would settle it.

Maneuvering speed here is not weight-scheduled and not serial-split, which is unusual for a Piper sheet and simplifies things: 130 knots CAS is the figure.

Built on the frontmatter's 1,793 lb empty weight and 1,607 lb useful load, both of which are unsourced generation-pass figures — weigh the actual airplane. Fuel is figured at 6.0 lb/gal, which is the density this certificate's own NOTE 1 arithmetic implies.

The 1,607 lb useful load is the airplane's whole argument. With the tanks full there is still over 1,100 lb left — four adults and four hundred pounds of baggage, which is more than most six-seat singles will do.

But watch the seven-place restriction. With Kit 69072-3 fitted, anything above 3,112 lb must be fuel, which caps people and bags at roughly 1,319 lb no matter what the useful load says. Only the 1979 airplanes escape it.

Related aircraft: Piper Cherokee Six 260, Piper Lance, Piper Saratoga (fixed gear), cessna-u206-pre-litigation, piper-pa28-180-cherokee

• Flight Training (2/10): Too large, too thirsty and too powerful for primary instruction. Useful only for a high-performance endorsement.
• Backcountry (5/10): Big useful load and fixed gear are assets; the low wing limits ground clearance and off-airport visibility. The Cessna U206 and Cessna 185 are better. Improved grass is fine.
• Business Travel (6/10): A genuinely comfortable four-adult cabin with room for bags, and an easy IFR platform. Loses points on speed against retractable rivals.
• Aerobatics (1/10): Normal category. NOTE 2's placard is explicit — "NO ACROBATIC MANEUVERS, INCLUDING SPINS, APPROVED."
• Cross-Country (8/10): Six seats, long legs and a huge load. Few singles match the load-range combination.
• Cargo Hauling (9/10): Over 1,600 lb useful load with the optional cargo door. Short of the 206 only because the low wing and smaller door limit bulky loads.
• Local Fun (3/10): 16 GPH is not a Sunday-morning airplane.
• Surveying (4/10): Carries any sensor you like; the low wing blocks the view straight down.

Many Cherokee Sixes still fly behind legacy King or Narco radios. The panel is large and takes modern equipment well, and the airframe's load-carrying life makes the investment worth making.

See Avionics Pricing Reference.

Gap seals and fairings remain the best value per dollar.

Parts (excellent). Lycoming IO-540 parts are among the most available in aviation. Piper airframe parts come through the factory, aftermarket suppliers and a deep salvage network. The Piper Owner Society is a genuinely useful resource.

Mechanics (common). Most general aviation A&Ps have worked on PA-32s. Simple construction, ubiquitous engine.

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)
• Prop reserve: about $3/hour
• All-in at 100 hours a year: $18,000-$25,000

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

Overhaul pricing is the house figure from reference/engine-overhaul-pricing.md, not a per-airplane quote.

The price block is not sourced. It is inherited from the generation pass, and asking prices are perishable — treat it as a band, not a quote.

Value adds: cargo door +$5,000-$10,000 · speed mods +$3,000-$5,000 · modern panel +$30,000-$60,000 · fresh engine +$20,000-$30,000 · paint and interior +$15,000-$25,000.

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

Airworthiness directives. The one that dominates PA-32 valuation is the FAA's main wing spar directive applying across the PA-28 and PA-32 families, which introduced a factored-service-hours calculation, an eddy-current inspection of the lower spar cap bolt holes when the threshold is reached, and a life limit on unmodified spars. Spar hours and inspection status are now a primary valuation input on any Cherokee-family airframe.

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, because guessing at the right number would repeat the fault. Confirm the applicable AD list for a specific serial against the FAA's own AD database before relying on it — do not rely on this page for AD numbers.

Common problems, unchanged from long owner experience:

• Wing spar condition. The single biggest pre-buy item. Get the factored hours computed and the eddy-current inspection status confirmed in writing.
• Exhaust system cracks. The IO-540 exhaust cracks at slip joints and welds. Budget $3,000-$5,000 every 800-1,200 hours.
• Fuel bladder leaks. The four-tank system (two per side on the 84-gallon airplanes) uses bladders that seep at seams and sender units. $2,000-$4,000 per tank.
• Nose gear shimmy. The dampener wears; $500-$1,000 to replace. NOTE 5 of the certificate also requires two nose wheel centering springs (P/N 67168) on S/N 32-40001 through 32-7740113 if the wheel fairings are removed, and a rudder centering spring (P/N 37929-2) on 32-7840001 through 32-7940290 — a detail that gets missed when fairings come off for maintenance and do not go back on.
• Seat rail pin engagement. Common to every Cherokee. Recurring inspection.
• Door and cargo door seals. Deteriorate with age; $500-$1,000.
• Landing gear fairings. Crack and craze. Cosmetic, $500-$1,500 a set.

• Hull: 1.0-1.8% of hull value annually. Fixed gear keeps this well below the retractable Lance and Saratoga SP.
• Liability ($1M smooth): $800-$1,200/year.
• Pilot requirements: typically 300+ hours total, 25+ in type. A high-performance endorsement is required — the engine is over 200 hp.
• Typical total premium: $2,000-$3,500.
• In your favor: fixed gear, a large fleet with good actuarial data, docile handling.
• Against you: heavy, high-performance, and mostly forty to sixty years old.

See GA Insurance Underwriting.