Strong Interest from M700 Fury and Archer Trainers

Piper Aircraft took advantage of the journalistic interest around AirVenture 2024 to take the spotlight to show just how good sales have been - and sales have been pretty darn good.

Overall, Piper is just about track to deliver 300 aircraft this year, a 22% jump from its 2023 performance. Deliveries in the first half of the year came out 16% better than the same period last year, bolstered by the launch of the brand new M700 Fury. That aircraft, unsurprisingly, was a big seller from the start, with 50 expected to be delivered by the end of this year. On the more mundane side of things, Piper execs still see pretty healthy sales for the rest of the M-class and their classic piston aircraft.

“Our trainer and M-Class markets remain robust and we are pleased with our delivery performance this year and the positive reception from our customers with the launch of the M700 FURY,” said Ron Gunnarson, VP of Marketing, Sales & Customer Support at Piper Aircraft. “Our dealer and factory team’s dedication to excellence and our focus on customer satisfaction have been key drivers of our success.”

Things on the piston side of the market remain more or less the same. The Piper Archer LX and DLX round out the upper end of the Archer family, while the "trainer class", as Piper calls them, rounds out the more affordable, robust, and simple end of the clan. The Pilot 100i, Archer TX, and Archer DX are largely the same as the higher-end LX and DLX, taking the same 180-hp Lycoming or 155-hp Continental diesel engines and pairing them with a cabin experience made to withstand years of student instruction. It's a bit convoluted to those who aren't quite familiar with the Archer family, since it now encompasses 5 different nameplates that could just as easily be described as trim levels of the basic Archer.

Get past the complexity, though, and the decision makes more sense. Private operators can enjoy the more upmarket furnishings and avionics of the LX/DLX, and commercial operators can get something simpler and cheaper in the 100I/TX/DX. That's worked in Piper's favor, as schools look to update aging, heavily worn trainers with a known quantity designed for the job. Last year, Piper mentioned that its trainer backlog alone stretched into 2026, a “testament to the trust that customers place in Piper’s products”.

FMI: www.piper.com