Piper Aircraft has announced an order for 12 additional Archer TXs to ATP Flight School.
The delivery comes as part of an original agreement made in April of 2013 for up to 100 aircraft to the flight school.
ATP, America’s largest flight school, specializes in airline pilot training and pilot career development. The school initially agreed to purchase a fleet of 15 Piper Archer TX single-engine, piston-powered advanced training aircraft for delivery in late 2013, with the option for 85 additional Archers.
“We are delighted with ATP’s continued confidence in Piper Aircraft and our trainer products. Their consistent pace of aircraft orders and deliveries is a testament to the training equipment that we manufacture but also an indication of the growing pilot training activity,” said Piper President and CEO Simon Caldecott. “Our training aircraft sales continue to grow given the unmatched performance and operating costs that these airplanes offer.”
“Demand for airline pilots is soaring–these additional Archers will help ATP meet that demand,” said ATP Vice President, Justin Dennis. “ATP’s new Archer fleet has logged over 75,600 flight hours, earning graduates over 1,730 FAA airman certificates and ratings. We appreciate Piper’s commitment to manufacturing economical training aircraft that allow ATP to deliver pilot training at the scale necessary to impact the nationwide airline pilot shortage.”
As their need for more single-engine Piper training aircraft increases, ATP has been exercising their option to take additional Archers. The school continues to transition to a predominately Piper training aircraft fleet. At this rate of increase, Piper will have delivered 75 of the 100 training aircraft to ATP by the end of 2016.
All of the new ATP airplanes under the agreement with Piper will be equipped with Garmin G500 glass cockpit avionics suites. The G500 is a PFD/MFD dual-screen electronic flight display. Dual 6.5-in. LCDs, mounted side-by-side in the bezel, put both Primary Flight Display (PFD) and Multifunction Display (MFD) capabilities directly in instructor and student field of view to help streamline instrument scanning and enhance situational awareness.