Piper Aircraft has strengthened its commitment to the diesel-powered light aircraft fleet by bringing the diesel Archer DX program in-house, starting with 2019 models. Since the Continental CD-155 diesel engine was approved for installation in the Archer under an FAA supplemental type certificate (STC), Piper has been building diesel Archers as standard TX models that were then modified with the diesel-engine STC.
Orders for the diesel Archer haven’t exactly soared, with 10 deliveries since 2015, but Piper officials believe that market will climb. “We’ve been marketing the DX as its own product,” said Ron Gunnarson, Piper v-p of sales, marketing, and customer support, “and as a result, we’ve started to see [growing] interest.” DX sales were averaging two per year, but that jumped to six in 2019. “We have a couple of large proposals for fleet purchases for the DX, and I believe these will come to fruition,” he said.
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