COMMON
AEST
Piper Aerostar
The Hot Rod
“The fastest piston twin ever put into production.”
Piper (Ted Smith design) · private
NO PHOTO
Length
34 ft 10 in
Wingspan
36 ft 8 in
Max speed
220 kts
Range
1,000 nmi
Ceiling
25,000 ft
Engines
2x Lycoming IO-540 (290 hp each)
Crew
1
Max passengers
5
Typical config
1 pilot + 5 passengers
Built
1,010
Ted Smith designed the Aerostar to be one thing: fast. Mid-mounted wings, a fuselage like a fighter's drop tank, and enough wing loading to demand a pilot's full attention. It held the speed record for production piston twins, and owners will tell you nothing else feels like one.
Fun fact
The Aerostar held the speed record for production piston twins — the pressurized 700 model tops 260 knots.
How to spot one
Unmistakable: the wing is mounted mid-fuselage (not low), the body is a slim tube, and the whole thing looks like it's speeding while parked.
Crews call it
The Aerostar
Sounds like
Two hard-working IO-540s moving faster than piston twins are supposed to
One might be overhead right now.
Bogey turns the The Hot Rod from a dot in the sky into a card in your logbook. Coming to iOS and Android.
Get Bogey