Piper Twin Comanche

Decent speed, timeless good looks and long-range efficiency are just a few reasons why owners like their Twin Comanches. And with more than 2000 of them built, there are usually plenty to pick from in various stages of repair, restoration and upgrade. Find one growing out of the weeds? Plan on sizable amounts of work and cash to get it up to snuff. These are old twins—the earliest dating back to the early 1960s and the newest the early 1970s.

But with speed mods, new avionics, nice paint, interior refurbs and fresh engines, restored Twin Comanches sell for a price premium.

Tribal history

The Twin Comanche has two designations, PA-30 and PA-39. 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 powerplant. One difference is that the PA-30 has the injected version of the O-320, the IO-320-B1A. Cabin room was virtually identical in both airplanes.

But it was no Apache. With a sloped windshield, a pointed nose, tiger shark engine nacelles and even optional tip tanks, the Twin Comanche was an attention getter. Part of that was that was the cruise speed (as fast at 170 knots for early normally aspirated models) along with miserly fuel burn—it appealed to private owners and charter operators.

The 1966 PA-30B had two extra seats, but it didn’t exactly make it a six-passenger airplane for normal-sized adults on lengthy trips. The extra seats eat up the baggage space and the useful load of 1350 pounds allows just a half load of fuel if all six seats are filled. Still, given the airplane’s efficiency, that could be a 300-mile trip.

The PA-30 Turbo B came along in 1966 and with optional factory-installed RayJay turbochargers, boosting potential speeds to a smoking 190 knots in the mid to high teens. Each RayJay turbo has a wastegate controlled directly by a mechanical cockpit knob. It’s cheap and reliable, but there’s some workload.

The PA-30C came along in 1969 and had a new instrument panel with an offset radio rack and T-pattern instruments, rather than Piper’s traditional hodgepodge arrangement, which many of the earlier airplanes still have. The last of the Twin Comanches was the PA-39 series. Distinguished by its counter-rotating engines, this series was regarded by many as the finest of the Twin Comanche line and, to this day, the ones to buy. The current Winter 2024 Aircraft Bluebook suggests the typical retail price of a 1972 PA-39 turbo is $117,000. We’ve seen well-refurbished models sell for $200,000 plus, yet still need some work.

Performance

Twin Comanches move right along and speed mods better already good speed and handling. They’re powered by 160-HP Lycoming IO-320 powerplants, both in turbocharged and normally aspirated versions. TBO is 2000 hours.

Twin Comanche pilots tell us to plan on cruise speeds of 160 to over 200 knots, burning 13 to 16 gallons per hour. A well-rigged RayJay turbo we flew was more in the 170-knot range. “I have yet to run into a Twin Comanche that was slower than 165 knots true at optimum altitudes, with 168 to 170 knots being more the norm. Above 10,000 feet, the speed drops off a bit, but not nearly as fast as the fuel flow goes down,” Kristin Winter told us. Again, some speed mods, including cowling and air induction tweaks, can make significant increases. Still, we’re told with the turbos, the Twin Comanche will hold more of the MEAs out west on one engine.

Like most light twins the Twin Comanche will power through a climb with one engine caged, but it won’t break climb records. That’s if everything is done just right and the plane isn’t too heavy. Gross is 3600 pounds for the normally aspirated models and 3725 pounds for the turbo version. We’re told that most normally aspirated Twin Comanches have an empty weight close to 2400 pounds when modern avionics, lightweight starters and alternators are installed. Manage the single-engine climb correctly and you should get about 200 FPM of climb, or a bit more. In prior reports we discovered that the Diamond DA42 twin (the Lycoming-powered versions) climb a solid 350 FPM on one engine.

Remember that the Twin Comanche comes from a different era in certification, with some blemishes as proof. When it was first introduced it was somewhat popular as a multi-engine trainer, and that environment gave the PA-30 somewhat of a tarnished reputation with regard to handling on one engine. On a number of training flights, Vmc demonstrations got out of hand (thanks, in part, to Vmc speeds being optimistically marked 10 knots lower than today). So, Vmc and stall speed could be nearly the same. This proved to be an unnerving and fatal experience for a number of unsuspecting students and their instructors.

The stall/spin syndrome was aggravated by the FAA’s then ill-advised recommendation that Vmc maneuvers be performed at as low an altitude as possible—to get full asymmetric power.

This, coupled with a wing that tended to lose lift all at once in a stall, helps explain the series of training accidents. This sort of carnage wasn’t unique to the Twin Comanche, by any means. The fact that the training community has wised up since the 1960s probably does more than any factor in explaining why the plane has a typical accident record and isn’t considered especially nasty on one engine, despite the anemic climb rate.

The later-model PA-39 had counter-rotating propellers, plus stall strips that weren’t standard on early models but were eventually installed on every airplane. The PA-39 was and still is a huge confidence builder because of the counter-rotating props, eliminating the critical engine. The FAA also issued an AD requiring that Vmc be increased to a more realistic 72 knots.

They are honest airplanes and don’t deserve the bad reputation they got early on due to poor training techniques from inexperienced instructors doing V1 cuts and engine-out training low to the ground,” Ed Pepper told us. He’s owned two of them over 25 years and makes a good point that any new-to-you Twin Comanche should be weighed—good advice for any old airplane that’s been in and out of upgrades and repairs.

Another feature on late-model Twin Comanches is interconnected aileron and rudder controls. Many marvel that the arrangement keeps the ball almost dead center without rudder coordination, even during reasonable rates of turn and bank angles.

Pilots transitioning to the Twin Comanche will quickly find that it really doesn’t have bad habits—like the Comanche single, pilots like these airplanes because they just feel solid. But don’t skimp on training. You want a thorough transition and recurrency with an instructor who knows the airplane. They’ll know important characteristics, including the airplane wanting to fly before Vmc and its finicky touchdowns. First, the takeoff.

Twin Comanche pilots learn to avoid premature liftoffs by holding the airplane in ground effect until Vmc. This takes some deft handling, since it can lead to nervous skittering on the runway or porpoising. On landing, the Twin Comanche is a floater until, all at once, it isn’t, with a jolt passengers tend to notice. When the wing sheds its lift—all at once—you’ll know you’re on the ground. Generally, these rude arrivals are laid on the tapered, laminar-flow wing and stubby rear main gear. To make matters worse, some owners told us the stabilator seems to have limited authority during the flare, but landings are generally fine. Check the wreck reports on this page, where we found some runway loss of controls.

Unlike other models, gross weights of Twin Comanches didn’t evolve much. The first models had 3600-pound gross weights with empty weights of around 2300 pounds, for a useful load of 1300 pounds. With 90 gallons of gas aboard, that left 760 pounds—just enough for four people and some bags but not that much different from the load-hauling capability of many stout singles.

The later PA-39 C/Rs have gross weights of 3725 pounds but empty weights of around 2500 pounds for even less useful load than the earlier models. With 120 gallons of fuel aboard, allowable cabin load declines to 500 pounds or so. But thanks to those economical engines, that much gas translates to seven hours of endurance and exceptional range.

Wrenching them

The Twin Comanche’s engines have an excellent service history, which goes a long way toward making the airplane relatively affordable as twins go. Like the airframe itself, the engines are the target of relatively few serious ADs and many of those are of the shotgun variety.

Our sweep of service difficulty reports has consistently found few smoking guns, and many of the complaints are related to what can best be described simply as aging aircraft issues—especially old airplanes that haven’t been we’ll maintained. In turbo twins in particular, corrosion in engine mounts has caused problems in years past. Trouble spots are the areas where exhaust heat tends to weaken the metal.

AD-wise, the Twin Comanche isn’t terrible. The landing gear bungee cords are supposed to be replaced every 500 hours in service, or every three years, whichever comes first. Some TC experts say this should be done annually. The bungee cord AD was promulgated in 1977 to prevent the landing gear from collapsing after a manual extension. It also helps in retracting the landing gear and, when it’s too worn out to do this, the gear circuit breaker is likely to pop.

Twin Comanche owners agree that the International Comanche Society (www.comancheflyers.com) is a worthwhile organization for advice. We found that the 3000-member private Fans of the Piper Twin Comanche Facebook page is also a good and active source for noodling maintenance and upgrade advice with fellow owners.

The $8000 Whelen (flywat.com, which was previously LoPresti Speed Merchants) two-piece carbon fiber Wow Cowl is a popular mod for PA-30/PA-39 Twin Comanches. Aside from more modern styling, it promises lower drag/extra range, better single-engine climb, reduced cooling drag and an eight-hour installation. Knots2U (knots2u.net), another speed mod house, has a similar product line, along with windshield, lighting and nosebowl kits.

Need more resources? We’re told that the Airworthy Comanche forum at www.forums.delphiforums.com has many Comanche-savvy contributors who seem to know everything there is to know about Comanches. Kristin Winter is one respected source of knowledge.

Last, before closing any deal on a Twin Comanche, get an insurance quote and do a thorough inspection with a shop that’s familiar with the breed.