NC Flight School to Acquire Up to 115 Archers and Seminoles

Piper Aircraft, the storied American aircraft manufacturer, proudly announced that Blue Line Aviation, the popular, Smithfield, North Carolina-based flight school, has signed a purchase agreement for a large fleet of new Piper aircraft.

The long-term agreement includes full replacement of the school’s extant single-and multi-engine fleets with Piper’s reliable, robust, and eminently proven Archer TX single-engine and Seminole twin-engine aircraft. The order comprises an initial firm commitment for 55 aircraft with options for an additional sixty planes. Deliveries of Blue Line’s new aircraft are slated to begin in the second half of 2023.

Blue Line Aviation, by virtue of the school’s high-pass-rate, favorable location, and excellent reputation, has risen to prominence and popularity over the last decade. The institution is best known for its six-month Career Pilot Program, a vocation-focused initiative by which students earn certificates beginning with Private Pilot (PPL) and culminating with Multi-Engine Instructor (MEI). The school’s primary flight training location is at Smithfield, North Carolina’s Johnston County airport (JNX).

Blue Line Aviation, for its own part, announced on 28 March that it would imminently expand to include a new Winter Haven, Florida (GIF) location. The school’s new Piper fleet will serve Blue Line’s JNX and GIF locations. Transition from the old fleet to the new will transpire over the coming four years.

Blue Line Aviation founder Trey Walters stated: “Blue Line has a track record of delivering results and rely on our partners to help us do so. Expanding our fleet partnership to Piper is a step towards reliably expanding our fleet rapidly to serve more students. We are further excited to be purchasing American-made airplanes built in the great state of Florida, which we will soon be calling home.”

Piper Aircraft vice-president of sales, marketing, and customer support Ron Gunnarson set forth: “Blue Line Aviation has revolutionized the flight training market with their Career Pilot Program. We are honored to have them joining our Piper Flight School Alliance, and we look forward to helping them grow their mission to provide timely, cost effective, and thorough flight training in the world’s finest training aircraft.”

As a classroom, the Piper Archer TX provides students the entirety of aircraft systems and functions requisite safe and effective flight training. Standard instrumentation includes a Garmin G1000 NXi glass cockpit and G5 standby display. Piper’s standard, mission-specific flight school interior is designed to withstand the rigors of flight training, and the optionally available factory-installed air conditioning system promises to add significantly to the effectiveness and enjoyment of summertime flight instruction for students and instructors alike.

Building on over sixty years of PA-28 manufacturing expertise, the Piper Archer TX occasions a uniquely reliable, stable, flight training platform. The aircraft’s 180-horsepower Lycoming I0-360-B4A engine is mated to a Sensenich fixed pitch propeller. The powertrain motivates the Archer TX to a cruise-speed of 128-knots (at 75-percent power), a maximum range of 522-nautical-miles, and service-ceiling of 14,100-feet.

The twin-engine Seminole has trained generations of pilots—to include your humble author—and features robust construction, stable twin-and-single-engine flight characteristics, and a generously-low Vmc. The Seminole’s pair of durable, 180-horsepower, Lycoming IO-360-A1H6 engines stand up to the rigors of multi-engine training, running in near-perpetuity despite the exigencies of shock-cooling peculiar to V1 cuts and single-engine air-work. The two-blade, constant-speed, Hartzell propellers by which the Seminole is impelled forward are of the full-feathering type—another capability essential to multi-engine training and proficiency.

The latest iteration of Piper’s enduring Seminole aircraft family offers buyers a cockpit kitted out with the G1000 NXi avionics suite and ergonomic, hand-fitted, heavy-duty vinyl and wear-resistant leather seating well-suited to keeping students and MEIs cool and comfortable throughout the most sweat-inducing, simulated single-engine go-arounds. As it has been for decades, the Seminole is designed specifically for efficient, comfortable, and safe multi-engine flight training. After the fashion of its Archer TX stablemate, the new Seminole is available with optional cabin air-conditioning.

FMI: www.piper.com