Plane & Pilot 2017 Buyer’s Guide: Single-Engine Piston Planes

Newcomers, upgrades, and old favorites: 20 piston singles for 2017.

Plane & Pilot

Tuesday, January 31, 2017 at 08:13 AM ET

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Key Takeaways:

The 2017 Buyer's Guide for piston singles features significant updates to existing models and new aircraft, offering a diverse range from basic trainers to high-performance, pressurized airplanes.
Many leading models, including the best-selling Cirrus SR22 G6, incorporate advanced avionics like Garmin's G1000 NXi and G3000 suites, alongside enhanced safety features and improved passenger comfort.
The market provides options for various needs, from high-altitude, six-place pressurized aircraft (e.g., Piper M350) and blazing-fast cruisers (Mooney Acclaim Ultra, Cessna TTx) to versatile fixed-gear utility planes (Cessna 182 Skylane) and entry-level personal aircraft (Cirrus SR20, Diamond DA40, Tecnam P2010).

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Piper Matrix

What do you get when you take a pressurized Mirage piston single, take out the pressurization system and price it hundreds of thousands less than the Mirage? A Matrix. Here’s why. The most popular plane in the world is the Cirrus SR22, right? So with the Matrix you get a huge cabin in comparison with room for six (four in club seating configuration in back), SR22-like 213 knots top speed, the Garmin G1000 panel with all of its safety enhancements and an operating profile like other non-pressurized turbocharged singles, so four-seater pilots feel confident stepping up. It’s brilliant. And the Matrix, with its huge 120-gallon capacity, has a range of better than 1300 nm: by far, the best in class. With the big panel of the PA-46 line, the Matrix also has the room for a giant 15-inch multifunction display in the center, bigger than any display in its class.

Niche: Premium retractable-gear piston

Base Price: $899,000

Competitors: G36 Bonanza, Cirrus SR22, Cessna TTx

Read our Piper Matrix pilot report.

Piper Matrix Specifications

Learn more at Piper Aircraft.