Ron Wanttaja writes:

Just because they're registered doesn't mean they're still flying. You
come up with a good way to tell how many are still flying, and we'll
have an apples-to-apples comparison.

So how do you know that all those Cirrus aircraft are flying?

As a point of interest, there are more 50+ year-old Cessna 172s on the
rolls than there are new-production models. A third of them haven't
changed ownership in the past 20 years. Satisfied owners...or inactive
aircraft?

My guess is the former. Just because an airplane has had the same owner for 20
years hardly means that it isn't being used.

In 2009, there were 26,228 Cessnas of all vintages on the FAA rolls, and
115 accidents. This is a rate of about 0.43%...the Cirrus was about 50%
higher, but the new-production 172s had TWICE the accident rate of the
overall fleet.

So?

Should we conclude that there's something wrong with the new-production
172s? Or is just in the way Cessna markets them?

Why not just look at the way they are marketed? The problems with Cirrus'
marketing are obvious.

Comparing new-production 172s avoids the active/inactive issues.

And helps massage the numbers to make Cirrus look better.