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SA Flyer owned a Saratoga II TC and this top of the range model has trended to overshadow the early basic Togas which were Piper Lances with the tapered wing. It may have been a basic beginning, but Jim Davis reckons it’s still a great plane.
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Jim Davis writes, “The Saratoga gives you the best of both worlds – cabin class luxury and single economy.” I wrote that nearly 50 years ago after flying one around ‘the border’ for a few months.
More recently I did a few hours in a 2005 model, and my opinion has not changed – it’s still a really impressive aeroplane.
Beautiful? Naaah. It’s far from pretty. It lacks the grace of a Cessna 310, or the functional beauty of a single Comanche. But it is has more cabin space than both, and it’s faster than a Comanche, so perhaps beauty is not everything.
In 1966 I flew its ancestor, a 260 HP Cherokee Six, Echo India India. It was the first Six in the country and I was much impressed – it was a young airliner. You could chuck a couple of drums of fuel in the back, or up to four stretcher cases. Two on each side – one above the other.
And like the 235, the Six is one of the few aircraft that can carry more than its own weight. That one weighed just 1665 lbs and could carry 1735 lbs to give it a gross weight of 3400 lbs.
Unfortunately aeroplanes and cars get heavier with each new model. I have a brochure for the 1982 300 HP turbo retractable Saratoga – its empty weight has gone up by 413 lbs, but the gross has only increased by 215 lbs. This means that despite the extra power and fancy semi-tapered wings, you are 200 lb worse off.
I can give you figures for all the different models, but that’s boring. So let me rather tell you about Lima Golf Romeo, which was a normally-aspirated 1983 SP with retractable gear, because that’s the one on which I have most time.
I bullied the South West Administration into buying this aeroplane, brand new, for R141,375. They used it mainly for casevacs.
The Saratoga is so much more aeroplane than the Cessna 210, and yet look at who has the lion’s share of the market in Namibia – Cessna just had a far better marketing team.
Talking of marketing, with the first Cherokee Sixes, they threw in four magnificent pig-skin suitcases that exactly fitted in the front luggage compartment. Oh, and they left the price tags on. Once mama saw that, she told pappa which was the best aircraft.
The Saratoga has come a long way since the old Six. Gone are the ponderous handling and sluggish performance of the Six. Gone, too, are the spartan appearance and indifferent finish that characterised the early Pipers.
The old Boere-Boeing was a great workhorse, but it was separated from the Saratoga by three main points: first the semi-tapered wing, which gives noticeably better short-field performance. It also lets the aeroplane glide rather than plummet. And Piper claims better cruise speed and economy.
Second, the retractable gear has an obvious speed advantage.
And finally, Piper adopted a ‘new image’ policy intended to give Ford utility with Cadillac quality. They even used the Cadillac upholstery people to supply the interiors. The Crushed Velour material is comfortable – even luxurious – and time has proved it to be extremely durable.
And now for some of the things I didn’t like. There is no ‘door ajar’ light on the panel. This means you have to wait until your back seat pax are seated and then check that both halves of the massive back door are closed properly.
Next, there are two interconnected tanks in each wing. This makes for easy fuel management, but it means you can’t see the fuel in the inboard tanks through the filler, so you have to rely on sight gauges in the wings. I hate it, even though the gauges are pretty accurate.
The next problem has no cure. The oil filler and dipstick is very high on the top of the engine, particularly if you have the nose oleo well inflated to keep the prop away from the gravel. It’s okay for six footers, but the rest need to find something to stand on.
The final annoyance is the old low-wing problem. Older folks and girls in tight skirts are pretty much restricted to using the back door – which is comfortably low to the ground.
I love the way you can clip out the four back seats in a couple of minutes to make way for cargo. We had to take a stretcher case from Rundu to Windhoek soon after I arrived. The double back doors make loading seem like a stroll through Marble Arch. The luggage went in the front compartments, while a doctor and a nurse sat next to the patient.
The instrument panel and control layout uses the basic design that has been standard on Pipers for many years. It is well thought out and functional. If you have flown other Pipers, you will feel at home behind the controls of a Saratoga.
The very wide cabin is not only comfortable, it gives you panel room to fill up with dual everything in avionics. We had a King KFC 200 auto-pilot and it worked like a charm. It handled the Namibian turbulence more comfortably and accurately than many pilots.
The automatic gear extension system (inherited from the Arrows) works with an uncanny reliability. You can override it for obstacle clearance climb out of short fields. A flashing light and audible warning tell you if you are using low power with the override on. This makes the system foolproof, if not idiot-proof.
Luckily Lima Golf Romeo had those beautiful manual flaps that Piper has used since the beginning of time. However two years later, in 1985, they did the unthinkable and put in an electric motor and a whole lot of wiring to make the aircraft heavier, less reliable and less pleasant to fly.
For night flying, the panel lighting is excellent. You can adjust it through three different controls to give exactly what you want.
The 300hp fuel-injected Lycoming is a pleasure to start, hot or cold. Simply do what the book says and the three blades blur into a disc as she rumbles into life. The front baggage compartment does a splendid job of sound deadening.
To taxi the Saratoga you need strong legs. The weight of that engine on top of the nosewheel makes for heavy steering unless you have a lot of weight in the back. Visibility on the ground is excellent, even over that long nose, and she can turn in very confined spaces. The 3.4m track between the main wheels makes it incredibly stable on the ground. There’s never any need to tie the aircraft down, and gusty crosswinds during landing or takeoff are a breeze.
Talking of takeoff, this is one area where the Saratoga surprised me. The heavy stick loads at rotation make you think that she doesn’t want to fly. Nothing could be further from the truth, as one pupil demonstrated. We were taking off from Eros, Windhoek, at gross weight, with six up, on a hot, airless afternoon with the density altitude at over 9000 feet. I told the pupil that I wanted him to rotate gently at 85 knots. Well, he got it wrong and we suddenly found ourselves climbing out enthusiastically at 75.
Another time we went into an extremely narrow and sandy bush field. The landing was easy – the deep sand brought us to a halt in an impressively short distance.
For a soft field takeoff the book recommends full flap. At first I hesitated to do this because of the tremendous drag, but eventually decided to comply. After a few metres of skidding and pulling sideways as the wheels dug into deeper patches, we were suddenly on top and accelerating strongly. In this configuration she lifted off at 60 kts and climbed eagerly.
For handling, I would give the Saratoga eight out of ten for normal flight, where she has that solid big-aircraft feel. But only six out of ten for low speed flight, where she becomes heavy and soggy. She actually handles well below 80 knots, but you have to get used to large control inputs, particularly on the ailerons.
Stalls, ranging from clean with no power, to everything hanging out, and full power, are gentle and honest. You get about 10 knots of warning hooter, followed by a slight shudder and the nose dips with the wings level. With full power she reaches an unbelievably nose high attitude, and needs almost full right rudder.
Unlike most aircraft, Pipers usually perform better than book. Speed and fuel consumption were the only ones I could measure accurately on ZS-LGR, and she comfortably exceeded expectations.
At gross, and using 65% power, we constantly got a TAS of 162 kts (3 kts better than book). And the indicated stall speeds were a couple of knots slower than book – possibly position error.
For range, at 65 per cent, using ‘best power’ mixture, the book gives 865 NM (with 45 mins reserve). In practice I found I could comfortably plan on 900 NM with reserves. These were not one-off figures – they were honest, every-day working figures.
On the 330 nm trip from Rundu to Windhoek, which I did often, we were always about ten minutes faster than the 210s which proliferate in Namibia. Perhaps that’s because Lycomings are happy with 75% power (government fuel) and the Cessnas were probably using the maximum recommended 70%.
Let’s have a look at claimed figures. The Saratoga figures are from the POH, the rest are difficult to pin down – they seem to vary from source to source:
Saratoga SP Cessna 210N Beech A36
Horsepower 300 300 300
Top speed (kts) 164 174 184
Cruise speed 65% (kts) 159 167 169
Stall (dirty) (kts) 57 57 59
Rate of climb (ft/min) 1,116 860 1,210
Ceiling (ft) 16,700 17,300 18,500
T/O ground roll (ft) 1,013 1250 971
T/O over 50’ (ft) 1,573 2030 1,913
Ldg ground roll (ft) 732 765 913
Ldg over 50’ (ft) 1,530 1,500 1,473
Gross weight (lbs) 3,615 3,800 3,650
Empty weight (lbs) 1,999 2,319 2,247
Useful load (lbs) 1,616 1,681 1,417
Fuel capacity (US gal) 102 90 74
Range with 45 min reserve (nm) 865 700 720
The Saratoga is not quite as fast as the other two, but, paradoxically, it might get there sooner. On a flight from Johannesburg to Cape Town, nominally 700 nm, the Bonnie will get there first, with the 210 only 3 minutes behind. The Saratoga brings up the rear by landing 13 minutes after that. But the slightest headwind will have the other two scuttling into Bloemmies for fuel, putting the Piper way ahead.
Finally, the Piper’s Lycoming has a longer life, is more robust and cheaper to operate than the Continentals in 210s and Bonnies.
Since the first PA-32 came out 57 years ago, it has always been an underrated aeroplane – much like the 235 Cherokee.