Given the airplane’s low fuel consumption, half fuel is enough for 300 miles or so, but it’s not realistic to think of the Twin Comanche as a six-place airplane. The extra seats eat up the baggage space and the useful load of 1390 pounds allows just a half load of fuel if all six seats are filled. Although it has two extra seats, it really isn’t a six-place airplane for anything but the shortest flights and the smallest people.

In 1966, Piper introduced a new Twin Comanche-the PA-30B. With cruise speeds as fast at 170 knots, along with miserly fuel burn, the Twin Comanche proved popular among private owners, flight schools and charter operators. Compared to the Apache’s short and squat looks, the Twinkie was rakish, with a sloped windshield, a pointed nose, tiger shark engine nacelles and even optional tip tanks. Cabin room was virtually identical in both airplanes.īut the Twin Comanche was clearly a different airplane. One difference is that the PA-30 has the injected version of the O-320, the IO-320-B1. The first Twin Comanche shared two things with its slower predecessor, the Apache: It had four seats and the same basic 160-HP Lycoming O-320 power plants. (That airplane eventually evolved into the PA-23-250 Aztec, a strong airplane for Piper in its own right.) The Twin Comanche has two designations, PA-30 and PA-39. By any measure, the Twin Comanche was sleek and sporty compared to the airplane it followed, the dowdy, bulbous-nosed PA-23 Apache. The Twin Comanche first saw the light of day in 1963 and between then and 1972 Piper built about 2150 Twin Comanches in its Lock Haven, Pennsylvania plant, the same factory that produced the venerable Cub.

Piper twin comanche