Editing Piper PA-28 Cherokee (section)

===Wing===
Originally, all Cherokees had a [[Chord (aircraft)|constant-chord]], rectangular planform wing, popularly called the "[[Hershey Bar]]" wing because of its resemblance to the convex, rectangular chocolate bar.

Beginning with the Warrior in 1974, Piper switched to a semi-tapered wing with the NACA 652-415 profile and a {{convert|2|ft|m|adj=mid|-longer}} wingspan. The constant chord is maintained from the root to mid-wing, at which point a tapered section sweeping backwards on the leading edge continues until the tip. Both Cherokee wing variants have an angled wing root; i.e., the wing chord is greater at the root, with the leading edge swept back as it leaves the fuselage body, rather than the wing meeting the body at a perpendicular angle.

Debate is ongoing about the relative benefits of the two wing shapes. According to the Cherokee's lead designer, [[Fred Weick]], the semi-tapered wing was introduced to "improve stall characteristics and increase wingspan," and side-by-side testing of the two shapes found that with the semitapered wing, "the plane had better climb and flatter flight characteristics" <ref>Fred Weick, quoted by Terry Lee Rogers in ''The Cherokee Tribe'', The Cherokee Pilot's Association (1991), p.11.</ref> The original 1974 version of the wing had a structural weakness that caused a structural failure during an aerobatic maneuver, but that was fixed for all later wings.<ref name="auto">''The Cherokee Tribe'', p.45.</ref> According to Terry Lee Rogers (summarizing interviews with Weick), "the outboard wing sections had a different taper than the wing root, which permitted them to retain control even when the inboard sections were stalled."<ref name="auto"/>

However, designer [[John Thorp]], who collaborated with Weick in the late 1950s on an early 180&nbsp;hp version of the PA-28 (with Hershey-bar wings) and was not involved in the later semi-tapered design, publicly disagreed: "Tapered wings tend to stall outboard, reducing aileron effectiveness and increasing the likelihood of a rolloff into a spin."<ref name="Garrison">{{cite web|url = http://www.flyingmag.com/rectangular-wings?page=0,1|title = Rectangular Wings|access-date = 2009-12-26|last = Garrison|first = Peter|date=January 2003}}</ref>

Aviation journalist [[Peter Garrison]] is also in the Hershey-bar wing camp, claiming that the semitapered shape has a neutral effect on drag: "to prevent tip stall, designers have resorted to providing the outboard portions of tapered wings with more cambered airfoil sections, drooped or enlarged leading edges, fixed or automatic leading edge slots or slats and most commonly, wing twist or "washout". The trouble with these fixes is that they all increase the drag, cancelling whatever benefit the tapered wing was supposed to deliver in the first place."<ref name="Garrison"/>