C J Campbell wrote:

First of all, I am not interested in running an anti-Cirrus campaign. Just
because I favor the T182 over the Cirrus and that I think the Cirrus SR22
has some serious defects, some of you guys seem to think that I want to run
some kind of holy crusade against Cirrus.

Okay. I don't give Cirrus a blanket endorsement either, but I think
Cessna's going to have their hands full for the forseeable future in the
single-engine airplane market. The Cessna products are still fine for
what they do, but I think the majority of the market will choose Cirrus
for the average private pilot mission.

Now, if Cirrus really has managed to get the 4350 hour limitation lifted
then that removes one of my major objections.

Do you honestly still think there's any doubt?

I think the safety record is
still terrible, but I suspect that is more a function of training and the
kind of pilots that buy Cirrus than it is of the airplane.

This is a voluminous subject on which I have many opinions, but in a
nutshell
I believe the statistics show it's the training, not the airplane. This is
another area Cirrus (and the aircraft insurance industry) has addressed,
and these days buying a new Cirrus involves a type-rating style checkout
which
takes most new owners 10-15 hours. Cirrus fired their former training
provider
and gave the contract to the University of North Dakota, who developed
an impressively good (although imperfect) training syllabus for
transitioning owners and instructors. The training is all
scenario-based with a
heavy emphasis on ADM and personal minimums. It's going in the right
direction.

No, the guys who are on a crusade are those who cannot tolerate any
criticism of the holy SR22. Sounds religious to me.

There's still plenty to criticize. Fortunately, most if not all of it
can be fixed, and Cirrus has been steadily improving their products.

-Ryan