Piper PA-42 Cheyenne III / IIIA

The PA-42 Cheyenne III is the airplane Piper built when it stopped trying to make the Navajo do a King Air's job. It is a clean-sheet stretch: a new 293-square-foot wing, a 43-foot fuselage with a 275-inch cabin, a T-tail, 6.3 psi pressurization, wing lockers, and two 720-shp Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6A-41s. It first flew on 18 May 1979, was certificated in early 1980 under TCDS A23SO, and deliveries began that June. Roughly 192 PA-42s of all types were built before production ended in the early 1990s, of which around 148 were Cheyenne IIIs and IIIAs and 44 were the Garrett-powered Cheyenne 400LS.

What the III buys you over the smaller PA-31T Cheyenne is a real cabin-class airplane. It is nine feet longer inside, it holds 578 gallons instead of 382, it flies 1,600 nm instead of 1,150, and it will genuinely take eight people and their bags. Against the King Air B200 — its direct competitor and the reason it never sold in volume — it is faster in cruise, comparable in range, and roughly half the price on today's used market. What it gives up is the King Air's global support network, its wide fuselage, and its considerably better single-engine climb.

The Cheyenne IIIA arrived in 1983 with PT6A-61 engines, still flat-rated to 720 shp but holding that power much further into the climb. It raised the certified ceiling to 35,000 ft, lifted maximum cruise to 305 KTAS, and improved hot-and-high performance materially. Prices reflect that: a IIIA typically asks 30–40% more than an equivalent III.

One fact does a lot of work in this market: at 11,200 lb maximum takeoff weight the PA-42 sits below the 12,500 lb threshold, so no type rating is required. A multi-engine-land rating and a high-altitude/pressurized-aircraft endorsement is the entire regulatory requirement to fly a nine-seat, 285-knot, 33,000-foot turbine twin single-pilot. The FAA's bar is low here; the insurance market's is not, and that is the gate that actually matters.

The frontmatter above describes a Cheyenne III at the later 11,200 lb gross weight, which is what the Piper factory specification sheet documents and what most traded aircraft have been brought up to. A IIIA adds roughly 15–20 knots at altitude and 2,000 feet of certified ceiling for the same fuel burn; if the budget stretches, it is the better airplane.

Piper's cruise table for the Cheyenne III is quoted at an average cruise weight of 9,100 lb and maximum cruise power: 290 KTAS at 20,000 ft, 285 at 25,000 ft, 276 at 30,000 ft, 265 at 33,000 ft. The matching ranges on 578 gallons — including start, taxi, climb, descent and a 45-minute reserve — are 1,400, 1,610, 1,850 and 2,000 nm. Pull back to maximum range power and those become 1,785, 2,010, 2,180 and 2,240 nm.

Fuel burn is derived from those same two tables rather than guessed, because Piper never published a single headline number. At FL250 the airplane covers 1,610 nm in 5.65 hours; taking a 45-minute reserve out of 3,873 lb of usable fuel leaves roughly 615 lb/hr, or about 92 gph as a block average including the climb. The same arithmetic gives roughly 107 gph at FL200 and 78 gph at FL300 — and those two derived figures agree closely with independently published operator figures of 109 gph at 290 knots at 22,000 ft and 77 gph at 270 knots at 29,000 ft, which is a useful cross-check. The frontmatter pairs 285 KTAS with 92 gph deliberately: they are the same line of the same chart.

The III is not a short-field airplane and this is the number buyers most often miss. Book takeoff distance over a 50-foot obstacle at max gross, flaps 0, is 3,230 ft — nearly two-thirds longer than the Cheyenne II's. With the optional autofeather system and 10 degrees of flap it drops to 2,384 ft, which is a large enough difference that the presence of a working autofeather system is worth real money. Accelerate-and-stop is 3,985 ft flaps 0, or 3,363 ft with autofeather and flaps 10. Size the runway on those figures, not on the ground roll.

Single-engine performance is honest but not generous: 531 fpm at max gross at sea level, and a single-engine service ceiling of 18,200 ft. At 9,000 lb those improve to 899 fpm and 25,400 ft. Clean stall speed is 100 KIAS and approach speed is 105 KIAS — this is a fast-flying airplane close to the ground, and it does not tolerate being flown like a light twin.

The 6.3 psi pressurization gives a sea-level cabin to 14,600 ft, 8,000 ft at 28,500 ft, and 10,000 ft at the certified 33,000 ft ceiling. Most operators cruise FL240–FL280 where the cabin is comfortable and specific range is close to its best. The IIIA's PT6A-61 extends the useful part of that band upward.

Cheyenne III at 11,200 lb maximum takeoff weight, a factory equipped empty weight of 6,550 lb, and 578 gallons (3,873 lb) of usable fuel. Useful load is 4,650 lb. The binding constraint is usually the 9,350 lb maximum zero-fuel weight, which caps cabin load at roughly 2,800 lb — a genuinely generous number for this class.

The important line is Piper's own mission profile, because it is the one buyers usually do not believe: eight occupants, bags, and 1,446 nm at a 268-knot average. Very few aircraft in this price bracket will do that, and it is what makes the Cheyenne III a serious proposition against a King Air B200 — the B200 at full fuel has roughly 570 lb left for people, where the Cheyenne III has 777 lb and needs 100 gallons less to get to the same place.

The trade-off is that full fuel and a full cabin are mutually exclusive, as on every airplane in the class. The practical sweet spot is 480–500 gallons, six people with real luggage, and a 1,400–1,500 nm leg — essentially every business trip anyone would fly this airplane on. The Cheyenne IIIA does the same work about 15 knots faster and 2,000 ft higher on a slightly larger 582-gallon capacity, worth about twenty minutes on a 1,200 nm leg.

Hot-and-high matters more here than on smaller turbines because the III's runway numbers start long: at a 6,000-ft density altitude and max gross the accelerate-stop runs well past 6,000 ft without autofeather. Depart high-elevation airports light, and check the chart rather than the habit.

Related pages: Piper PA-42-1000 Cheyenne 400LS, Piper PA-31T Cheyenne I/II/IIXL, Beechcraft King Air 90/200, Beechcraft Super King Air 350, Cessna Conquest I/II, Mitsubishi MU-2, Rockwell/Gulfstream Turbo Commander, Piaggio Avanti, Aircraft Valuation Methodology, Engine Overhaul Pricing, GA Insurance Underwriting, Maintenance Ecosystem, Business Travel, Cross-Country Flying, Cargo Hauling

Business travel (9/10). The airplane's whole reason for existing, and it is very good at it: a 275-inch cabin, six to eight passengers, 6.3 psi, 285 knots and 1,600 nm with reserves, into 4,000-foot runways. It does everything a King Air B200 does except be a King Air, for roughly half the acquisition cost. Held back from a 10 by parts and support reality.

Cross-country (9/10). Continental US city pairs in one leg with reserves — New York to Denver, Seattle to Dallas — at flight levels above most weather, with radar, boots and a real autopilot. The IIIA at FL300+ is better still.

Cargo hauling (7/10). Genuinely useful: 4,650 lb of useful load, 300-lb nose and rear compartments, and 200-lb wing lockers that are one of the type's underrated features. No clamshell freight door, and 51 inches of cabin width limits dimensional cargo, but for dense freight and medevac conversions it works.

Surveying (7/10). Five-and-a-half-hour endurance, a 33,000-ft ceiling, a stable platform, and a fuselage that has taken camera ports and sensor mounts on survey and air-ambulance conversions. Cost per hour is the limiting factor.

Backcountry (2/10). Retractable gear, a T-tail, 3,230 ft over a 50-ft obstacle and a 100-knot clean stall. Paved runways only.

Local fun flying (2/10). Over $1,000 per hour direct, before fixed costs.

Flight training (1/10). Transition and recurrent in type only. No type rating is legally required, which makes structured training more important rather than less.

Aerobatics (1/10). No.

Cheyenne IIIs left Vero Beach with corporate-grade equipment for their era, and panel generation is one of the biggest value discriminators in the fleet today.

• Original (1980–1984). Collins Pro Line or Pro Line II radios, a Sperry SPZ-200 or SPZ-500 autopilot and flight director, mechanical HSI and ADI, ADF, DME, and Collins or Bendix weather radar. Serviceable, but display and gyro repairs are getting expensive and slow.
• Factory late-production (1985–1991). Collins Pro Line II with EFIS-85/86 CRT displays and, in many aircraft, a Universal or Global FMS. Genuinely capable and still flyable, but CRT displays are a finite resource and some legacy FMS databases are no longer updated.
• Mid-tier refresh ($100,000–$200,000 installed). The common path: dual Garmin GTN 650Xi/750Xi navigators, GTX 345 with ADS-B In and Out, GDL datalink weather and traffic, and the original autopilot retained and overhauled.
• Full glass ($250,000–$450,000 installed). Garmin G600 TXi or G500 TXi displays with dual GTN Xi navigators, digital engine indication, synthetic vision and TAWS, sometimes with a modern digital autopilot retrofit. A handful of IIIAs carry integrated glass conversions done for charter operators; these command a strong premium.

Two items matter more than the displays. The autopilot must be strong — single-pilot IFR at 285 knots in a T-tail turbine twin without a dependable autopilot and yaw damper is not a mission to plan. And the weather radar must actually paint; a dead radar is a $40,000–$70,000 repair, not a squawk.

• Autofeather. Optional from the factory and the single most valuable system on the aircraft: it cuts 850 ft off the takeoff distance over a 50-ft obstacle and 620 ft off the accelerate-stop. An aircraft without it is a materially different airplane on a short or hot runway.
• Four- and five-blade composite propeller conversions. Widely fitted. Lower cabin noise and vibration, better ground clearance and erosion behavior than the original three-blade Hartzells. Expect $60,000–$120,000 per side.
• Engine upgrades. Unlike the PA-31T, the PA-42 has no widely marketed drop-in power upgrade — the PT6A-41 and -61 are already close to the airframe's structural and gearbox limits. Buyers wanting more should look at a IIIA or a 400LS, not a conversion.
• Avionics and interior refurbishment. Because acquisition prices are low relative to the cabin on offer, several aircraft have had $300,000+ combined panel and interior work. It recovers perhaps half its cost in resale but transforms the ownership experience.
• Aerodynamic packages. Winglets and strakes have been proposed for the PA-42 over the years; very few were certificated and fitted. Verify paperwork on any claimed modification rather than trusting a photograph.

See Maintenance Ecosystem.

• Parts availability: fair. The honest weak spot. Only around 150 Cheyenne III/IIIAs were built, Piper no longer supports the type as a current product, and unlike the PA-31T the PA-42 shares comparatively little with a large sibling fleet. The PT6A side is excellent. PA-42-unique airframe items — pressurization components, some control-system and interior parts, certain gear components — can take weeks and cost more than they should. An active owner network and a couple of specialist brokers hold serviceable inventory; get to know them before you need them.
• Mechanic familiarity: specialist. A general A&P can do much of the airframe work. The engines, fuel controls, pressurization and T-tail structure want a shop that knows the type; there are perhaps a dozen in the United States who genuinely do.
• Annual / phase inspection: $25,000–$40,000 in a clean year; $60,000–$110,000 in a year that turns up gear, empennage or pressurization work.
• Hot section (per side): $45,000–$55,000 at 1,800 hours.
• Overhaul (per side): $275,000–$325,000 at 3,600 hours. Budget roughly $600,000 for the pair — that is the per-engine figure doubled, not a pair price doubled again.
• Propellers: $15,000–$25,000 per side at overhaul, more for composite conversions.
• Engine programs: P&WC ESP and JSSI both cover these engines, converting the HSI and overhaul events into roughly $180–$250 per engine hour. Enrolment substantially protects resale and is worth paying for.
• Direct operating cost: roughly $1,000–$1,200 per hour including fuel, maintenance and engine and prop reserves. Fixed costs — hangar, insurance, recurrent training, subscriptions, databases — add $65,000–$85,000 a year. At 150 hours a year, plan on an all-in budget of $230,000–$270,000.

Said plainly: the acquisition price of a Cheyenne III is a small fraction of the cost of owning one. Over a five-year hold at 150 hours a year the airplane will cost more to run than it cost to buy. Owners who go in understanding that are generally very happy with it; owners who bought on the sticker price are the ones who sell after eighteen months with a deferred engine event.

See Aircraft Valuation Methodology for the framework. PA-42-specific notes:

Engine status is the dominant variable, by a wide margin. A PT6A-41 or -61 overhaul runs roughly $275,000–$325,000 per engine, so a run-out pair represents a $600,000 liability against an airplane typically asking around $1,000,000. Hot sections fall at half TBO — 1,800 hours — at roughly $45,000–$55,000 per side. The practical consequence is that two Cheyenne IIIs with identical logbooks and 1,500 hours of difference in engine time are not the same airplane at all, and the cheaper one is usually the more expensive one.

Indicative 2025–2026 asking prices:

Market listings across the whole Cheyenne family in 2026 have run roughly $520,000 to $1.5 million, with the PA-42s occupying the upper half of that band.

Value drivers, in rough order: engine time and program enrolment (P&WC ESP or JSSI); IIIA versus III; avionics generation and autopilot condition; autofeather fitted; damage and corrosion history, particularly in the empennage; boot, paint and interior condition; and completeness of AD and logbook records. Charter and medevac history is not automatically bad — those aircraft are often better maintained — but it does mean high cycles, and cycles drive gear, pressurization and hot-section costs.

The PA-42 carries a modest AD burden for a forty-year-old pressurized turbine twin, but the ones it has are recurring and structural, and they are the first thing a pre-buy should chase down.

AD 2009-13-06 R1 (Amendment 39-16820, effective 3 November 2011) — nose baggage door. Applies to PA-23, PA-31 and PA-42 series aircraft including the PA-42, PA-42-720 and PA-42-1000. Establishes life limits on safety-critical nose baggage door components, requires their replacement, and mandates repetitive inspection and lubrication of the latching mechanism and lock assembly. It was prompted by a series of incidents and fatal accidents in which the nose baggage door opened in flight. This is a recurring AD with parts on a clock — establish exactly what was replaced, when, and what the next due date is.

AD 96-21-03 (Amendment 39-9780) — inboard aileron hinge bracket. Applies to PA-31, PA-31P, PA-31T and PA-42 series aircraft not already fitted with the improved brackets. Requires dye-penetrant inspection of the aileron spar and rib beneath the inboard hinge bracket for cracks, replacement of any cracked structure before further flight, and installation of the improved P/N 74461-02 (left) and 74461-03 (right) brackets as terminating action. Most of the fleet is long since complete; confirm it in the logs rather than assuming.

Ice protection and severe-icing flight manual revisions. Several airworthiness authorities have mandated flight manual supplements for the PA-42 covering severe icing conditions and ice protection system operation, along with directives on power lever positioning. These are paperwork items, but a missing or superseded AFM supplement is a genuine airworthiness finding on a pre-buy.

Hydraulic hose life limits and aileron/control system inspections appear in several national AD schedules for the type. Verify against the current FAA AD list for the specific serial number rather than a generic type list — PA-42 applicability is frequently serial-number-limited.

Beyond the ADs, the items that turn up repeatedly:

• Engine trend data over hot-section condition. ITT margin erosion is the leading indicator. Ask for the trend history and the last borescope report, not just the log entry.
• Mismatched engine times. A twin with a fresh engine on one side and a run-out on the other has a staggered six-figure future. Price it accordingly.
• T-tail and empennage attach structure. The horizontal stabiliser sits at the top of the fin, out of casual sight. Corrosion and fastener condition at the fin/stabiliser junction is the inspection most often skimped and most expensive to find late.
• Pressurization at 6.3 psi. The PA-42 works its pressure vessel harder than the PA-31T does. Door seals, outflow valve and controller are the usual suspects.
• De-ice boots and prop heat. Full boot replacement is a $40,000–$70,000 job. Check age and condition, and that prop, windshield and pitot heat draw current.
• Landing gear and brakes. High-cycle ex-charter airframes wear actuators, uplocks, doors and brakes. Insist on a gear swing.
• Interior weight creep. Several aircraft have gained 200–400 lb over their original equipped weight through interior and avionics work. Weigh the airplane rather than trusting a thirty-year-old equipment list.

See GA Insurance Underwriting and Insurance Costs.

• Hull: roughly $12,000–$20,000 a year on a $1,000,000 agreed value.
• Liability: $5,000–$10,000 at $1M smooth; more for higher limits or for carrying passengers commercially.
• Typical all-in owner-flown premium: $16,000–$28,000 a year. Part 135 operations run higher.

Because no type rating is required, the FAA is not the gatekeeper — the insurer is, and insurers treat the PA-42 as a serious machine. Expect requirements around 2,000 hours total, 500–750 multi-engine and 250 hours of turbine time; where turbine time is short, expect a mandated mentor pilot for 25–50 hours and a substantial first-year loading. Initial type-specific training at SimCom or an equivalent provider is effectively non-negotiable, and annual recurrent will be written into the policy. A low-time buyer stepping directly out of a piston twin should assume the answer is either "no" or "yes, with a professional in the right seat for the first year", and should get that answer in writing before signing. Two engines and a well-documented type history work in the buyer's favor: an experienced, current, recurrent-trained owner is not hard to place.