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[QUOTE="Immelman, post: 680349, member: 3600"]
So I got checked out in one of these today at the FBO. Great IFR airplane...only 5 years young, the youngest airplane I've flown to date, very stable, not-too-bad speed, great avionics.

Just one problem: The useful load! 755 pounds!! Barely 460 pounds with full fuel. Most C172s, with less power and less room, have a higher useful load. It is essentially a two-seat airplane with full tanks. I am sort of bummed as I'd wanted to take 3 pax on an IFR trip, and got the checkout to have a rental airpane with equiptment to safely do single pilot IFR. With 3 average weight pax I can carry 2 hours fuel, tops.

I know I am bitching in vain because, duh, the extra equiptment that makes it a good IFR platform takes up weight, but I am also wondering what the folks at Piper were thinking.... carrying around an air conditioning system, heavy (but comfortable) leather upholstered interior, etc...a whole lot of junk that you haul around every day and don't necessarily use, without tossing in, say, a 200HP engine and doing necessary structural mods to increase max weight another 250# or so.
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