
By Rocky Landsverk
The best of all worlds for most pilots would be to own the plane of your dreams and have the financial ability to fly it whenever and wherever you want.
Back to reality, most pilots have to make choices. Some fly a plane that is a little smaller and slower than theyâd really like, while others share their plane with other pilots in any number of club configurations.
For Dominick Tardogno and the other 27 members of the Chandelle Flying Club in Texas, they are achieving their goals with three shared airplanes: The 1980 Piper Dakota which graces our cover and these pages; a 1976 Piper Archer; and a 1972 Piper Warrior.
Clubs arenât for everyone, but Tardogno is an example of somebody for whom a club works. âMy goal is to become a commercial pilot, and Iâm well on my way,â he said. âIâm getÂting ready for my commercial check ride right now.
âWhen I joined the club about two and a half years ago, I had just gotten my private, and I had probably about 60 hours total time. I knew that I needed to get my instrument rating and I needed to build time, and eventually I was going to need to get my commercial and my CFI. So I was looking at needing to buy my own airplane and find a hangar, which in my area is nearly impossible. Also, as a single person whoâs not wealthy and trying to build time, doing all of that on my own was daunting.â
Tardogno told us about the clubâs Dakota. Fellow club member Doug Janewszewski was also on the photo shoot.
Purchase and Restoration
The club acquired their Dakota in August 2019 and is the secÂond owner. âA gentleman in Seattle had owned it since new,â Tardogno said. âI think the total time on the airframe was less than 3,000 hours when we acquired it. It was all original interior, thatâs the original paint, and it had all of the original avionics and radios in it. The only thing that had been done to it when we acquired it was that it had been brought up to ADS-B compliÂance. Everything else was all-original.â
The club only had to do some basic maintenance when it got the plane home, which was accomplished by two members who flew commercial to Seattle, then flew the Dakota back to Texas. âThey did a checkout with a CFI out there in Seattle,â Tardogno said.
Once the plane got to its new home, it was flown quite a bit before the club decided to start upgrading it in earnest. âOnce we got it, we flew it for probably about two months and put some hours on the airplane,â he said. âWe got used to having a higher performance aircraft back in in our stable of airplanes and then, as a club, we voted on a capital expenditure to comÂpletely overhaul the avionics and redo the panel.â
Therein lies one of the benefits of being in a large club, so expenses can be shared. We canât all pull the trigger on major Garmin upgrades, which typically go north of $50,000, but with 28 partners, the club went all-in.
âWe were able to put a fairly significant avionics package into this airplane,â Tardogno said. âWe put in a stack of two G5s for the primary instrumentation. We were able to put in an IFR-certified GPS, thatâs the Garmin GTN 650-Xi. We added a JP InstruÂment 830 engine monitor and fully functional GFC 500 dual-axis autopilot. Itâs a fantastic autopilot that inÂterfaces really well with the G5s and 650.
âSo this plane is very, very nice for cross-country flying and particularly for instrument flying. You can fly pretty much any kind of approach, but espeÂcially an area navigation (RNAV) apÂproach with a localizer performance with vertical guidance (LPV), from the initial approach fix, itâll fly you right down to minimums, which is pretty awesome.â
Landing a Dakota
Tardogno has flown a lot of airplanes, but this has been his first experience in a Dakota. He gave us advice for people wondering about the type. The first is unÂderstanding that itâs powerful but heavy. âThere are a couple of things to know about the Dakota, and I had about 50 hours in an Archer before I ever flew this airplane, so stepping into a Dakota from a similar, taper-wing Piper, it flies very similarly to a Cherokee in a lot of ways, but there are a couple of things that are pretty different,â he said.
âOne difference is that itâs much heavier. You donât notice that much when youâre flying it, because of the additional power, but as soon as you do your first âengine-outâ in a Dakota, you realize that it is a much heavier airplane, because it drops like a rock. It will not float in the same way that a Cherokee 180 or an Archer will.
âOne of the ways that becomes particularly relevant is in your landing technique. In my experience with this airplane, it lands a lot smoother if you carry more of a soft-field landing techÂnique with it and you hold a little bit of power in, and then use the power to sort of soften the transition as you flare.â
Respect the Power
Dakota difference number two, for pilots who are used to smaller planes anyway, is that you need to watch the torque, because of the power. âThe other obvious difference, for someÂbody coming from a 172 or a Cherokee 180, is on a takeoff or in the air doing a go-around, the torque factor is much more sigÂnificant because itâs a higher horsepower motor,â Tardogno said. âAnd our plane, in particular, has a three-blade climb prop on it, so it will definitely try to rotate the airplane if you firewall it.
âSo one of the things that that I like to tell people who are new to the club, when they first fly the Dakota, is that if you have been trained in lower horsepower airplanes, you have a tendency to smoothly but aggressively put throttle in. You donât have to do that in this airplane. For example, on a go-around, you donât need full power most of the time. If youâre on final approach with flaps at approach speed, which is 72 knots in this airplane, and you firewall it, itâs a handful. You want to be judiÂcious with throttle application.â
Piper Dakota Specs
Engine | Lycoming O-540-J3A5D |
Horsepower | 235 |
Min. Octane Fuel | 100LL |
Gross Weight | 3,011 pounds |
Ave. Empty Wieght | 1,608 pounds |
Ave. Useful Load | 1,403 pounds |
Total Fuel | 77 gallons |
Wingspan | 35.4 feet |
Length | 24.7 feet |
Height | 7.1 feet |
Doors | 1 |
Seats | 4 |
Top Speed | 170 mph (148 knots) |
Cruise Speed | 165 mph (143 knots) |
Best Glide | 98 mph (85 knots) |
Takeoff Roll | 886 feet |
Takeoff Over 50-ft Obstacle | 1,216 feet |
Landing Roll | 1,725 feet |
Landing Over 50-ft Obstacle | 825 feet |
Service Ceiling | 17,500 feet |
Extra Payload, Extra Petrol
With nearly a 1,400-pound useful load, even with full fuel, youâre able to carry four people. Tardogno plans for 13.5 gallons per hour when full, which is pretty reasonable for carrying that much weight. âItâs between 12 and 13, and thatâs if youâre cruisÂing at max cruise,â he added.
So itâs not as miserly as some other planes, but then again, they canât carry 1,400 pounds. Tardogno pointed out that within a mix that also includes an Archer and a Warrior, this is a good option in certain situations.
âPrior to the Dakota, we had a Cessna Cardinal. That was our third airplane, and we had a couple gear-up incidents, and our insurance company decided we needed to change airplanes,â said Tardogno, noting this was before he joined the club. âSome of our members still miss that airplane.
âBut where the Dakota fits in really well is good fuel burn and great useful load. Itâs not quite as fast as some complex airplanes like an Arrow or a Mooney, but you donât have to worry about the maintenance and insurance costs of operating a retractable gear airplane.â
Heavy Usage
The club flew this plane over 400 hours last year. There isnât much to do in the next year or two, from a maintenance standÂpoint, but that time will come quickly when youâre flying a plane this much. There are about two years left before TBO, and at that time, the club will have to decide what to do regarding its engine and especially its magnetos. The plane has the infamous (in some opinions, anyway) single drive shaft magneto setup.
âWhen we replace it, one of the things that weâre considering, and we have research to do yet, is actually replacing the engine with a different version of the O-540 thatâs a more modern one that has a true dual magneto system,â he said. âOur magnetos are on the same drive shaft.â
âThereâs no STC that will allow you to put an electronic mag in it. Thatâs an upgrade that we did to the Archer; we put a SureÂFly emag in it, and weâd really like to put an emag on the Dakota at some point.â
Besides the engine, Tardogno said heâd like the club to add air conditioning, as well. âThe Dakota originally came with factory air conditioning, which is something that Iâve been advocating that we swap out at some point and get it working again,â he said.
Why Join (or Form) a Large Club
Tardogno said the club is an âequity club,â which means you buy into the club and own 1/28 of its assets. He added that the club might take on a couple more members and make it 1/30. âI looked at it more as an investment than a one-time fee,â he said.
There are fixed rates per hour, and that money goes into the maintenance fund for that particular airplane. Also, monthly club dues cover our fixed costs (insurance, hangar, etc.).
He said the club also has fairly flexible rules, including beÂing able to take the planes for overnight trips. âWe treat the airplanes as if they were our own,â he said. âThere are some guidelines, like you canât book things out more than a month in advance unless you get approval from our board of direcÂtors, and we try to limit reservations to seven days consecuÂtively unless you get prior approval. But people are very rarely denied anything.â
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