With well over 5,000 produced today, the Piper Seneca is the world’s best selling twin turboprop, having become a favorite of many operators. Famed for its luxury, the Seneca has become a favorite of corporate operators particularly who use it as a VIP transport.
Though not continuous in its production, the Piper Seneca has been in production since 1971, both in the US with Piper Aircraft and in other countries, most notably in Brazil with Embraer and Poland with PZL.
Background
In 1960, Piper Aircraft released the now-famed Piper Cherokee. Inundated with orders for the aircraft from pilots, air taxi companies, medevac operators and more, Piper began looking for a way to capitalize on its success further.
Realizing that there was a market for a six-seat, single-engine aircraft with similar specs to the Cherokee, Piper began developing an aircraft to fit this requirement.
Although not a direct descendant of the Cherokee, the Cherokee Six (as it would become known), shared many characteristics with the Cherokee, including its popularity with a variety of operators.
By the mid 1960’s, the Twin Comanche – Piper’s flagship twin engine aircraft – was becoming outdated.
The introduction of newer aircraft by competitors Cessna and Beechcraft were stealing customers away from the Twin Comanche, and the aircraft gained a reputation for being somewhat dangerous after a series of high-profile crashes.
Piper needed a solution. Quickly.
Wanting to further build on the success of the Cherokee Six, Piper began developing a twin-engine variant of it in early 1967.
Initially known as the Twin Six, the prototype was merely a standard Cherokee Six with two wing-mounted engines (plus the standard nose engine too giving it a tri-engine design) which served as a proof of concept for what would become the Piper Seneca.
Following the Twin Six’s first flight on April 25 1967, Piper began developing what it called the PA-34 in full, reconfiguring the engine layout and giving it more powerful engines.
By the the PA-34 entered full-scale production in 1971, it had been dubbed the Seneca, named after the Native American tribe of the same name and following Piper’s long-established tradition of naming their aircraft after Native American tribes.
Development
Operational History
GA Aircraft
VIP Transport
Airline
Flight Schools
Military
Price
Variants
As the most popular twin turboprop ever produced, Piper produced dozens of variants of the Seneca to ensure it remained ahead of its competition, namely the Beechcraft Baron and Cessna 310.
PA-34-200 Seneca
PA-34-200T Seneca II
PA-34-220T Seneca III
PA-34-220T Seneca IV
PA-34-220T Seneca V
Embraer EMB-810 Seneca
As one of the largest markets for turboprop aircraft, the Seneca proved especially popular in Brazil. Starting in 1975, Brazilian aircraft manufacturer Embraer began producing the Seneca under license.
Collectively known as the EMB-810, Embraer produced the PA-34-200T and PA-34-22T as the EMB-810C and EMB-810D respectively. Embraer’s production of the EMB-810 ended in the mid-1990’s.
In total, Embraer produced 680 EMB-810s (452 EMB-810C, 228 EMB-810D).
PZL M-20 Mewa
As a part of economic liberalization in the late 1970’s, Polish aircraft manufacturer PZL acquired the rights to the Seneca in 1978.
Despite communist Poland’s lack of a civil aircraft industry, the PZL M-20 Mewa (Polish: Gull), the first production Mewa rolled off the assembly line in 1982. So far, only a meagre 33 have been produced.
Unlike Embraer, PZL developed their own variants of the Mewa, namely an air ambulance derivative in 1988.
Specifications
| Specifications | PA-34-220T Seneca V |
|---|---|
| Length | 28 ft 7 in (8.72 m) |
| Wingspan | 38 ft 11 in (11.86 m) |
| Height | 9 ft 11 in (3.02 m) |
| Crew | 1 |
| Passengers | 5 |
| Cruise Speed | 348 km/h (216 mph; 188 kn) |
| Range | 1,611 km (1,000 mi; 870 nmi) |
| Service Ceiling | 25,000 ft (7,620 m) |
| MTOW | 4,750 lb (2,155 kg) |
How Safe is The Piper Seneca?
With aviation safety once again in the forefront of the public’s mind, this article could never be complete without looking at the safety record of the Piper Seneca.
Thankfully, the Seneca has a good safety record. Of the well over 5,000 copies sold to date, there have only been 634 accidents resulting in fatalities, of which there are a little over 1,750.
Although this may seem high for an aircraft – indeed, it is 1,750 or so fatalities too many – the overwhelming majority of these crashes were caused by issues such as poor maintenance and pilot error, which plague all aircraft, not just the Seneca.
In fact, if you remove crashes caused by the common factors, the number of crashes involving the Seneca is virtually nil. Even if the handling of the earlier variants in particular was a little heavy.
And this is all for good reason: Piper learned its lesson from the Twin Comanche which it replaced.
Especially accident-prone with low-hour pilots due to issues with the engines and the airframe making it ill-suited to low-speed flying, Piper focused on these areas specifically when developing the Cherokee Six into the Seneca.
Although the Seneca is still ill-suited to low-speed flying, it is far safer than the Twin Comanche was doing the same.
Safety warning: Just because the Piper Seneca is considered to be quite safe does not mean that all are. If you plan on flying on the Seneca, ensure you do so with an operator that has a good safety and maintenance record.
Spotter’s Guide
What do you think about the Piper Seneca? Have you ever flown it? Tell me in the comments!
Featured image courtesy of Flightlog via Flickr.