Robert,

You are repeating a common myth in general aviation regarding the POH.
Perhaps cruise speeds come from marketing at Mooney (although I've
never noticed it to be the case), they certainly do not at Cessna, New
Piper or Cirrus. In the evaluations I've done of those aircraft they
invariably beat book speeds by from one to four knots. Cessna cruise
speeds are at full gross weight and New Piper's at "mid-cruise
weight". All three companies, in my experience, are extremely careful
to provide accurate information on performance in their POHs, knowing
that they will be subject to scrutiny by the aviation media.

I will agree that in the 1960s and early 1970s, before POHs (pre-1976)
a number of manufacturers, notably Maule and the Piper rag-wing
airplanes and the very early Cherokees, gave cruise performance
numbers that were seriously optimistic and thus tainted the entire
industry. They were called on it repeatedly by the mid-70s, notably
by Aviation Consumer, and the practice ended, and the aircraft I
examined, Beech, Grumman/Gulfstream singles, Cessna, New Piper, Cirrus
and the current Adam A500, met or exceeded book performance figures.

All the best,
Rick

(Robert M. Gary) wrote in message . com...
Richard Russell wrote in message . ..
I don't have an opinion either way on this issue because I don't have
any personal knowledge (I know, that's no excuse on Usenet). I will
say this, however. The language in the manual would not by itself
convince me that a conventional spin recovery was impossible. The
fact that the manual requires the immediately deployment of the
parachute is a reflection of the fact that Cirrus did not go through
the spin recovery certification process and therefore cannot recommend
a conventional spin recovery technique. As far as I'm concerned the
language in the manual is what it is for legal reasons and does not
definitively support either side of the issue regarding the
possibility of recovery.

After speaking with the test pilot from Mooney I was surprised how
much of the POH comes from marketing and legel and how little comes
from engineering and test pilots. That's one reason cruise speeds
don't seem to work out. Cruise speeds come from marketing.

-Robert