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4 photos from Wikimedia Commons · credits & licences
- 1. Piper PA-22-150TD Tri-Pacer Kyabram Vabre: Phil Vabre· GFDL
- 2. Piper PA-20 Pacer Skis Bromma 03.68: RuthAS· CC BY 3.0
- 3. Frontiers of Flight Museum December 2015 129 (Piper PA-20 Pacer): Michael Barera· CC BY-SA 4.0
- 4. Piper Pacer monoplane in snow: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service· Public domain
what is it?
The PA-20 Pacer and PA-22 Tri-Pacer, Caribbean, and Colt are an American family of light strut-braced high-wing monoplane aircraft built by Piper Aircraft from 1949 to 1964. The Pacer is essentially a four-place version of the two-place PA-17 Vagabond, with conventional landing gear, a steel tube fuselage and an aluminum frame wing covered with fabric, much like Piper's famous Cub and Super Cub. The Tri-Pacer is a development of the Pacer with tricycle landing gear, while the Colt is a two-seat flight training version of the Tri-Pacer.
How to recognise it: 1 piston engine with propeller · 8.9 m wingspan
base stats
Bars compare against all aircraft: 3,500 km/h, 20,000 km, 850 seats; size and number built on a log scale up to 640 t (An-225) and 45,000 built (Cessna 172).
fun facts
- First flew 77 years ago, in 1949.
- Top speed is 1.7× a car on the Dutch motorway (130 km/h).
piston: A car-like piston engine turning a propeller: simple and cheap, the classic small plane.
spec sheet
- first flight
- 1949
- number built
- 1,120
- role
- civil utility aircraft
- makers
- Piper Aircraft
- engines
- 1× Lycoming O-320-B
- length
- 6.3 m
- wingspan
- 8.9 m
- height
- 2.5 m
- max take-off weight
- 907 kg
- top speed
- 227 km/h
- cruise speed
- 216 km/h
- range
- —
- ceiling
- 5,029 m
Specs are for the version in the Wikipedia article's specification section. Blank means the sources don't say.
Sources: Wikidata Q7197310, Wikipedia: Piper PA-20 Pacer (CC BY-SA 4.0).Updated 2026-10-24.