My Cheap Twin: The Piper Apache N1234P

Hi all,

I received enough questions about this since my free-multi offer, so I figured hey why not.

I'm going to lay out the hold hard facts about my Piper Apache and its cost of ownership. My goal isn't to sway anyone one way or the other; I just know that it is very difficult to get a direct answer on this a lot of the time.

First, I'll start by saying that I bought your stereotypical "cheap twin."

Looks like a relic from Indiana Jones in this light

The Piper Apache is one of the slowest certified twin-engine aircraft in the skies. She is from 1955 and powered by two Lycoming O-320-A1A engines. At "high power cruise" I'll get about 130KIAS and guzzling about 16gph. At a low power cruise LOP I'll get about 105KIAS at roughly 10gph.


My high power setting is Wide-Open-Throttle (usually at about 7,500'MSL), 2300RPM and I lean until I feel a power change (in the positive direction). This puts me on the ROP side of things, but I cannot know exactly where as I don't have an EGT/CHT.


Low power for me is at about 5,500'MSL, 22"/2100RPM, and I lean it until she starts shaking like a wet dog, then enrich until it's barely noticeably shaking (thanks Denny-O for these settings!).

My mechanic checking for oil leaks

She usually burns a quart of oil per side every 5 to 6 hours on a bad week and one quart every 9 to 10 hours on a good week.
So assuming $6.00/gal, on the low side my operating costs are about $61/hr


On a trip where I fly faster it'll be as much as $100/hr.


Operating costs, it's actually quite cheap to fly considering I'm feeding two engines. This isn't so bad, in my opinion.

The non-operating costs are where things start to suck. I'm going to throw out honest numbers because frankley I don't care if you guys know how much I paid and for what. If anything, I hope it'll help someone out.


I bought my Apache from an old man who'd had a stroke. He lost his medical, and hadn't flown her in a year. In the year he didn't fly her, Hartzell put out an AD on the props that made it extremely expensive for him to keep airworthy, especially since he wouldn't be flying it. The ELT was dead and needed to be replaced, and the Heater had its 20-year AD come up. Because of this, I bought her for $15,000.


I want to make it clear that I knew I was getting into a maintenance bucket of hell.


I called around and found a few shops. Maxwell Propellers estimated the props to be about a $3,000 check to comply with the AD. The blades were unfortunately found to require the AD work and were then found to be too short: I had to get new blades which bumped it up to $7,000.
The heater was sent off for its AD check, but the cannister was bad so I ended up getting a replacement. Work and parts it came out to about $3,250.


The ELT was pretty cheap, I was able to get a good condition used one from a guy going 406MHz for about $300. Haven't had to use it yet, though. =D

Then on top of that the annual itself was about $2,200. That seems to be a very static, very standard price for the Piper Apache. Then I was able to fly her for a year, and it was great! The feeling of a twin is surreal when you step into one from a single. Even the underpowered Apache throws you into your seat on the roll compared to the singles I'd flown.

Set of problems 1:

After about 20 hours of flight, the left and right generators and voltage regulators had to be OH'd. That ran about $550 per gen, $250 per V-reg, and about $300 for the work.

15 hours later, mid-flight, the right-side tach dropped to zero. My mechanic later found the cable just unraveled and broke. I bought the new cable for about $50, and we discovered there was no way in hell a new cable was running through the shredded remains of what was originally the sleeve section (I'm not an A&P so I don't know the right terms =P) for the cable. We agreed the easiest thing to do was to get a digital tach, but that also meant replacing both of them. I bought the EI tachs for about $450 each and it was about $200 of labour for the install.

The next Annual came, and a cyliner on the right (higher time engine; the left engine has 900hrs; the right engine has about 1800hrs) was down at 20/80 compression. Fortunately all other cylinders on the plane were at 70+. The work to replace the cylinder was about $1,000 and the cylinder overhaul was about $650.

There were also some other minor squawks, but nothing to really mention here I guess.

Then I've had some good flying since last summer until now (the next annual is due in August, so I plan on her likely being down the whole month of August).

On the shoreline near KUGN

Last March I basically played "keep the family busy" during a little reunion and was giving pattern-rides to pretty much everyone. I logged 50 landings and over 7 hours that day. Unfortunately, in that 7 hours we went through nearly 7 quarts of oil on the right engine. The mechanics washed her off and found the oil cooler was leaking as well as the hoses weeping. That ended up costing a total of $2,300.
I took her on a test flight of about 2hrs, and everything seemed good until the flaps went down. Then, suddenly, there was a ton of oil spit on the right flap. Oil consumption in the 2hrs was about 1.5qts.

My mechanics troubleshot it probono because they weren't able to find any other leak firewall forward. It ended up being the vaccuum pump (wet pump) going out, and it was spraying oil out the augmenter tube. It was about $1,350 to replace (parts + labour).

So now I have the Annual coming up. It's due August 1st, but I'm in no rush so I'm having them schedule her in for I think the week of the 12th? That'll be $2,200 plus whatever comes up. Fortunately the engines, landing gear, and control surfaces seem to be doing well; I'm not expecting for anything big to pop up, but I won't be surprised when it does. However, at this point I almost have a new plane with all the parts replaced.

Next up will be I think the turn-coordinator. It's going to need an overhaul soon (making a wonderful grinding sound).

I'm getting a good deal on my hangar, so I don't want to screw myself out of it by listing that cost here. I'll just say that I've been extremely happy with Landmark Aviation, and all of their employees (at least at KUGN) are always awesome and friendly.

So I bought her for $15,000. In three years I've spent: $21,100 on maintenance.

I also took a risk some will call unnecessary, but that's neither here nor there. My first year of ownership she was uninsured. Had I insured right away, it would have been $6,000 for the year for a VFR single engine pilot with less than 150hrs. It was a risk I decided to take, and I'm very lucky to have had nothing pop up. After 50 hours insurance for the year is $2,110 liability-only, and now at over 100hrs in type it's $785 for liability-only. If you factor all of that in, this cheap twin has cost me three times its purchase price.

Chicago Skyline, just because. One of my favorite flights to bring people on.

However: I hate banks. I don't like loans, and I try to live as debt-free as possible. I have a mortgage, and that's about it. This has let me spread the cost out pretty well while still getting to fly, without having to have a direct debt to someone. Worst case, I'd have a big heavy paperweight (versus dealing with collectors, etc.). I have no problem with the plane sitting around had it come to that. Fortunately it didn't, but again it's the choice between no-debt versus debt but almost always able to fly. I'd put my Apache's worth at probably $33k on the current market (of course, list it at $40k, but come down to $33k).