"Jay Honeck" wrote:
I've always heard this same thing said about the Bonanza...
but recent accident stats for the Bo don't appear to bear
this out.

Actually, A36s are having a spell as bad as Cirruses over the last year
or so, but anyhow...

This (Cirrus accident rate) is starting to look like exactly what you
were talking about in the subject line, i.e. a pilot problem. There's
no trend in the accidents that points to any obvious Cirrus flaw except
one: marketing. The Cirrus aircraft are touted as an escape from the
bad old days of GA, so much safer because of their sophisticated
avionics, simple controls, crashworthy cabins and ballistic parachutes.
Starry-eyed, well-heeled pilots are going for all this in a big way.
But all this cool new stuff doesn't change a thing about the way
airplanes fly. Pilots who are seduced by the safety hype seem to be
trying to exploit an edge the airplanes really aren't giving them, and
it's getting some of them killed.
--
Dan
C172RG at BFM