Piper M700 Fury Demonstrator Airplane on the Ramp in Vero Beach, Florida
Let’s thank the aviation gods for giving us aircraft like the M700 we can get to know and love in 2024.
Not twin but turbine. Fierce on the ramp but approachable. High-performance but manageable. Most of all, the Fury is packed with new technologies that will have you anxiously anticipating your turn in the cockpit. Let’s thank the aviation gods for giving us aircraft like the M700 we can get to know and love in 2024.
In March, Piper’s newest M-Class fleet addition, the M700 Fury, was certified to replace the beloved M600 with something nearly identical but packed in with extra power. Following the rest of the M-Class names, you can expect the M700 to show off 700 shaft horsepower on the Pratt and Whitney PT6A-52 engine.
It has Ramp Presence
As I approached the M700 demo plane at Piper’s facility in Vero Beach, Florida, earlier this summer, I couldn’t help but think of two things: 1. “Wow, I can’t believe how hot it is already at 9 A.M. in South Florida” and 2. “Wow, this aircraft is VERY photogenic and loves the camera!” The ramp presence of the Fury is everything you would expect of a new high-performance plane, and it’s a testament to Piper’s commitment to both form and function.
The first thing that will catch your eye is the demo plane’s custom paint scheme: unique but classy dark orange and black paint with “FURY” proudly presented on the vertical tail. It’s one of those planes that looks fast sitting still but is compact enough to give a single-pilot owner-operator the confidence to manage this aircraft independently.
The next thing most pilots, such as myself, will notice is the long nose that holds in the PT6A-52 engine with a beautiful 5-blade Hartzell propeller. I didn’t recall the 5-blade prop on all of the previous M-Class Piper aircraft, and when I asked my pilot for the day, Piper’s Joel Glunt, about it, he informed me that the 5-blade Hartzell was so popular as an upgrade on the M600 that they decided to make it a standard feature on the M700.
Lastly, I noticed the sleek wings. The leading edges have a booted de-ice system certified for Flight Into Known Icing (FIKI). After looking at the operating handbook, I confirmed that the wingspan is 43.2 feet, just a few feet too long to fit into a standard 40-foot T-hangar.
Joel performed a pre-flight inspection, and before long, I was sweating in the Florida heat and was more than ready to climb in and test out the air conditioning. The cabin and cockpit have a single access door just behind the left wing. Airstair access brings you into the middle of the cabin’s two rows of seats.
The interior finishings on this demo plane were sharp and included two-tone leather seats, red stitched “Fury” headrests, and matching leather sidewalls. The rear-facing middle row has two separate seats rather than a bench, as the space between them is the aisle where you can access the cockpit.
The aft bench seats two passengers, and behind that bench, in the tailcone, you will find the dedicated baggage space. In the middle of the cabin’s four seats, you will find a pull-out table and cupholders, along with an emergency exit on the window over the right wing. Both the exterior and interior are highly customizable, and they even have a feature on their website to let you design your dream plane. Of course, I had to try it out before I went, and I created the perfect M700 to match my teal Cessna 182.
Moving forward into the cockpit is where you must practice what I call “Pilot Yoga.” It is no secret that the Piper M-Class aircraft have a small aisle to access the cockpit, and getting into the seat requires a bit of flexibility. However, once you sit in place, the cockpit is just as roomy as any other, and you get comfortable quickly – especially with the long-awaited air conditioning once you spool up the engine.
We Live for the Sound of a Turbine Engine Spool-Up
Someone once commented that they wished they had the sound of a turbine engine spooling up as their cellphone ringtone on a social media post purely dedicated to the roars of turboprop engines coming to life. I thought that was a great idea until I realized none of us would ever pick up the phone as we would never interrupt one of aviation’s finest sounds.
As expected, the M700 had an excellent engine start that was music to our ears before we put on our Bose noise-canceling headsets. Putting on the headsets reminded me of a question I later posed to the Piper team: Do cabin passengers typically wear headsets, or is it quiet enough in the back to go without them? The answer was both. Although the cabin is quieter than the cockpit, most passengers opt to wear headsets as having conversations without them is a bit of a stretch, and they would have to talk very loudly.
Sitting in the cockpit, you will immediately notice the Garmin G3000 Avionics Suite with dual GTC 575 Touchscreen Controllers. The GTC 575s are very intuitive and assist the pilot in manipulating the G3000, including the initialization process, loading flight plans, computing takeoff and landing data, altering the displays, changing radio frequencies, and more. On the far left sits the Garmin GI-275 standby indicator with digital attitude, heading, airspeed, and altitude information.
Looking around the cockpit a little more closely, you would notice that although everything is within reach and accessible to a single-pilot left-seat operation, the right seat also has plenty of access if you want the help or extra eyes of a copilot.
For me, the glare shield was a bit high and limited forward visibility to a thinner field of vision than I am used to. An advantage of this could be that there is more sun and glare protection overall, which can be a problem on other low-wing aircraft. Above the windshield is another set of switches, mainly pertaining to power, fuel pumps, heat, and lights, which gives a smaller plane like this a big jet feel.
Full (Auto) Throttle
Taxiing to the run-up area for final checks and then onward to the runway was uneventful. However, one new-to-me feature made me feel like a true avgeek. I have extensive Garmin experience as a contract pilot on the Citation M2 and CJ3+, selling nearly new Cirrus aircraft, flying around my own Garmin retrofitted 1957 Cessna 182A, and as a previous factory demonstration pilot and sales representative for Textron Aviation. Even among all my Garmin ties, I haven’t had the chance until today to try out the new Garmin 3D SafeTaxi.
The 3D SafeTaxi puts the SafeTaxi map you know and love into 3D visuals, and as the M700 icon on the screen moves as you taxi, you can see taxiway/runway signs, hold short lines, hangars, traffic, buildings, and more passing by. What’s even more incredible? You can input your taxi directions, and you will get a familiar magenta line to follow that could help at complex airports. How easy could Citation recurrent be on those nighttime low visibility simulator sessions with this new feature?!
Rolling up to the hold short line of Runway 22 at Vero Beach Airport, Joel told me that most customers upgrading from a different M-Class aircraft to the M700 go on the demo flight almost exclusively to see the takeoff and climb performance. Piper states that you can expect a standard day takeoff distance over a 50’ obstacle at max gross takeoff weight (MGTOW) to be 1,994 feet. This is a 24% improvement over the M600; surely, those owners will notice the 641-foot decrease in takeoff roll.
As someone who doesn’t have M600 experience, I didn’t have this comparison to draw, but I still noticed a lot of power in my hands as I smoothly increased the throttle. We were off the ground quickly and started our climb. This phase is another noticeable moment for M600 drivers, as there is a 32% improvement, leading to an initial 2,048 fpm climb at the MGTOW of 6,000 pounds.
Cruising Along
On today’s demo flight, we leveled off at 10,500 feet, but the M700 can take you to a max operating altitude of 30,000 feet and sport a cabin altitude of 8,244 feet at FL280. Entering different phases and segments of flight is a breeze with the autothrottle, as it constantly adjusts speed and power according to your flight profile. Joel graciously gave me full control of the Fury on the entirety of the flight, so after I let it level off for a few moments, I took note of a true airspeed of 260 knots, outside air temperature of 11° C, and a fuel flow of 410 pounds per hour (roughly 61 gallons per hour) at 10,500 feet. The total fuel capacity of the Fury is 260 gallons.
Of course, the Fury isn’t intended for a normal cruise profile this low, and customers seem to buy the M-Class series to fly A to B on cross-country missions. Piper states that you could see a max cruise of 301 knots true airspeed with a range of 1,149 nautical miles and a fuel reserve of 45 minutes. Bringing back the power and decreasing cruise speeds by nearly 100 knots down to 206 knots true airspeed would stretch the range to 1,852 nautical miles with 45-minute reserves.
If you have previous Garmin experience, especially the G3000, you’ll find that everything with the panel is status quo and exactly how you are used to it. So, I focused more on the handling characteristics and tried a few steep turns. I appreciate that they left in a manual trim wheel. Even though I like electric yoke trim, a manual wheel is always my go-to. Once you add a touch of power and trim it out, the plane flies itself through the steep turn. You can even “cheat” by using the synthetic vision’s trend vector, or as most know it, the “green bullseye,” by placing the center of the bullseye directly on the white horizon line. If the white horizon line perfectly cuts through the green circle, you will not lose or gain a single foot.
After turns, I tried out a power-off stall as I am always curious about the stalling characteristics of new-to-me aircraft. As expected, it had a benign break at the stall and recovered smoothly without any big wing drops. After a bit of hand-flying some basic maneuvers, the typical Florida traffic was starting to burst, and we decided it was best to head in for my first-ever approach and landing in the Fury (or any Piper M-Class series, for that matter).
After turns, I tried out a power-off stall as I am always curious about the stalling characteristics of new-to-me aircraft.”
Emergency on Approach
This is where things got interesting. We got setup over the Atlantic Ocean on the RNAV 22 into Vero Beach, where the tower cleared us for the straight-in. The tower was incredibly busy. We were asked to slow to 100 knots for spacing, then asked to do a right 360-degree turn, and finally, once inbound again, set to follow Cherokee traffic we had eyes on in front of us. The spacing seemed tight, but we were cleared to land.
Gear was down and locked, flaps were full, and we were ready to land when we heard an aircraft chime in on the radio telling the tower that they had an alternator failure. Tower sprang into action and canceled all our landing clearances to prioritize this aircraft. The silver lining of this event is that I saw how the Fury handles in a real-world scenario. A go-around when you least expect it can be challenging to manage, especially in an aircraft you are not familiar with.
I climbed back to a safe altitude to be vectored back around onto the base for Runway 22. The Fury was certainly manageable, and having autopilot and autothrottle makes for the best copilot. We circled around and reconfigured, and I came in over the numbers at about 85 knots at Joel’s recommendation.
The landing profile was about how you expect any low wing to land: parallel the runway just a few feet above the surface, let the energy dissipate, and then gently tug on the nose as it starts to settle to protect the nose gear.
Focused on Safety
Reflecting on a great day at Piper Aircraft, I couldn’t help but think more about the safety features packed into the M700 Fury. My full-time job is as an aircraft broker working for Lone Mountain Aircraft, and I have noticed how safety-focused most clients are these days. Parachutes, Autoland, reminders, chimes, engine monitors, and different feature recognitions are all topics of conversation when selling planes. Piper did a great job of packaging all these safety-driven talking points into one system, the Halo Safety System.
The Halo Safety System’s star of the show is Garmin’s Emergency Autoland. Autoland is a fully autonomous landing system that can bring the M700 Fury to a full stop landing and shutdown from altitude while considering ATC, weather, runway length, fuel on board, and more, all from the touch of a button in the case of an emergency such as pilot incapacitation.
More features of the Halo system include electronic stability and protection (ESP), automatic level mode from the push of a button, autothrottles, and hypoxia recognition with automatic descent mode.
And if you love new tech, don’t sleep on Garmin’s PlaneSync app that allows the pilot to check on the M700 remotely to keep tabs on the fuel, oil, temperatures, and more to make planning for your next adventure just that much easier.
Overall, I was impressed with how well-equipped the Fury was, and after experiencing the 700 horsepower on takeoff, I can understand where the Fury name comes from.
If you want to see more of my demo flight on the Piper M700 Fury, check out my YouTube Channel @schmiiindy for the full-length video.
