Cirrus SR22 Purchase advice needed.

"Dude" wrote in message ...
Greg,

Sorry if I am calling your baby ugly, but...

It's not my baby, it's just an airplane. It also happens to be a
fantastic travelling machine that my family and I get more use from
than any plane before it.



I get information from lots of different pilots. That means that I may end
up spreading some bad poop, but I am open to being refuted.

That, my friend, is the biggest understatement since, "Houston, we
have a problem"


The information you are disagreeing with mostly comes from a very
experienced pilot who is a COPA member, but does not own a Cirrus. I have
no reason to suspect his lack of objectivity or that he has an axe to grind.
He is very knowledgeable.

Let's see, experienced pilot, a member of COPA (so he has at least
$50), supposedly objective, and very knowledgeable. Well, I fit that
description and I also have about 300 hours in the SR22, have been
through the Cirrus factory training, an IFR rating, a lot of other
flying hours in Cessna 152s, 172s, 172RGs, 182s, T-6 Texans, T-28
Trojans, competed nationally in gliders for 10 years, and my wife
thinks I am very knowledgeable. With all of that going for me, I am
going to tell you right now that Cessnas are the most unsafe plane in
the air, I heard that the wings were falling off of them as soon as
they passed through 1,000' AGL and people were dying every day in
them. This must be true, I am more qualified than your 'friend'.


I know someone who recently aquired an SR 22 on brokerage, so perhaps I will
be able to get a better experience with the plane. Cirrus reps do not
demonstrate the plane well enough for people to make a decision, you are
right about that.

Hmmmmm. I have read post after post made by YOU, 'Dude' person, that
has proclaimed the Cirrus is just plain unsafe. Yet, now you are
saying that you may have an opportunity to "...get a better experiance
with the plane". So you are willing to get in and fly it, huh? I
don't think I could have shot a bigger hole in your credibility
myself.


My only agenda is safety, and frankly, Cirrus has a poor rating. You can
make excuses all day, but the facts are the facts. They have killed too
many people in too short of time with too few planes. Has Cirrus done good
things for aviation, maybe they have. On the other hand, maybe they are
hurting it with their bad record.

I didn't know I made an excuse, where was it? Help me here. And yes,
facts are facts, this is exactly what I am trying to help you with.
The rest of this paragraph doesn't justify a response, hyperbole.


Have you thought to consider the black eye that BRS has over this whole
thing? The anti parachute crowd has lots of ammo now, thanks to Cirrus.
How about the anti composite folks? I think composites are safer, but
thanks to Cirrus, it doesn't necessarily look that way in reality.

BRS has a black eye!!?? How? I know there are SIX people walking
around alive today because of it. Look, I will admit that I was not
crazy about the 'chute when I bought the plane, I asked the salesman
several times why they couldn't just leave it out on my plane. I can
think of a lot of better ways to use 60 lbs. But you know what, now,
I kinda' like knowing it's there. Gives my wife a warm and fuzzy
feeling too.
And what about this 'anti parachute crowd' and the 'anti composite
folks' you mention? Are they a club? Do they have a website? How do
you get in touch with them? Did they have a seminar at Sun-N-Fun?
Are the members of the 'anti parachute' crowd depressed that those six
people are walking around today?


Whether anyone can recover from a spin @1000 feet is an interesting
discussion, but you are using it as a straw dog. I don't care what the
answer is, I know that if you take off in a Cirrus, and I take off in almost
any other new single, the odds are in my favor. Enjoy getting there faster,
those few saved minutes may be a large percentage of the rest of your life.

This sounds like the musings of a person desperately trying to justify
continued ownership of their current obsolete aircraft (if you even
have one).


I hope you are paying attention to all your fellow owners who are dying and
being careful.

If YOU have an airplane, your fellow owners are dying too.


Lastly, if you want to make a point, correct my facts, spelling, grammer, or
disagree with me, then that is great. I will likely learn from it. On the
other hand, if you want to question my motives or insult me, stay on the
porch. We KNOW as an owner of an SR22 that you have an agenda, but I would
rather take each post at face value rather than prejudging them.


Grammar is spelled with two 'a's. I have concluded you have
questionable motives because you have: 1)dedicated so much time being
critical of an airplane you have never flown, 2) you don't even have a
basic knowledge of the plane's aerodynamic design goals, 3) you have
attempted to pass off completely false information as gospel. You are
a person with an agenda. I don't know what it is or why, but it's
there. As far as staying on the porch, well, when I get up from it is
not your call. And how does ownership of an SR22 mean I have an
agenda? I don't care if you or any of the other people on this site
love 'em or hate 'em. I do like hearing TRUTH though. This thread
was started by someone just looking for information about Cirrus
aircraft. You are not qualified to make a post on the subject. Of
all the people that should be on the porch... And by the way, you have
made more than enough posts to eliminate anyone PREjudging you. Your
position is exceedingly clear, however poorly formulated. You have
attempted to portray yourself as some sort of unbiased, informed
expert while waving the safety banner to legitimize your opinions.
Particularly insidious, and not helpful to those seeking real
information.


"Greg" wrote in message
om...
"Dude" person,
I have really been reluctant to add a post to this thread because I
don't think I have seen so much misinformation in my life, but I feel
an obligation to correct patently false statements which I can refute
from a position of knowledge. I have been flying an SR22 for 2 1/2
years and have been a COPA member for 3 years.

You said that there are problems with the engines needing work at 700
hours. This is absolutely false. If this were happening, it would be
all over the COPA forums and I read them almost everyday. I have not
read the first report of an engine needing major work at 700 hours and
your statement about the interconnection between the prop and throttle
being problematic to the engine is so ridiculous as to be humorous. I
also have a very good relationship with my Service Center and we have
had a lot of conversations about various Cirrus issues, major engine
work at 700 hours has never been mentioned. And shock cooling
problems??!! Huh? I have never had this problem even once.

As far as slowing the plane down, I have never had a problem with THAT
either. I have had to start slowing down a little sooner BECAUSE I
WAS GOING FASTER TO START WITH! I have flown an ILS down to the
middle marker at 120kts (faster than the cruise speed of a 172) and
dropped flaps to land in the normal touchdown zone. It's just not a
problem and I have never wished I had speed brakes. By the way, THAT
is the correct way to spell "speed brakes".

And ANOTHER thing, if anybody thinks they are going to recover from an
inadvertent spin in less than 1,000' in any common four place or six
place airplane without hitting terra firma first, they are living a
fantasy. You just might barely make it if you are well practiced in
spins in the aircraft you are flying and perform spins on a regular
basis and you are at a very light weight. However, it will not happen
like that. It will happen unexpectedly, probably when you are heavy
with an aft CG, while you are doing something else like changing to
departure control frequency. You look up from the radio to see the
world spinning. You have less than five seconds to figure out what
happened and determine the correct control inputs. You must execute
them perfectly, or you die. Depending on the plane, loading, and
pilot proficiency in spin recovery, I would not expect many scenarios
like this to end favorably with less than 2,000' for an average pilot.

Geez, this thread has the worst signal to noise ratio I have seen in a
long time. You know, it started out with just some guy asking for a
little information, I don't think he wanted an earful of crap from
someone with an agenda. Until you fly a Cirrus for more than a
demonstration flight, you would do well to stick to verifiable facts.

Greg

"Dude" wrote in message
...
"Thomas Borchert" wrote in message
...
Dude,

This could reduce the stalls, at least on approach.

Oh? So how many have stalled on approach again? Right, none.

Yet.

Don't get so frigging defensive. My point is that the Cirrus can be
hard to
slow to approach speed. It takes more care than many other planes
because
it is slick, and you cannot control the pitch of the prop to add drag.
If
you had speed breaks you would allow the pilot more options to control
descent given that right now the system that governs the RPM/MP has
limited
ability to slow the plane without cutting the throttle.

Bottom line is that if a person has speed breaks, he is less likely to
fly
slow because he can shed speed whenever needed.


It would also reduce
the severe shock cooling they are seeing due to their engine control
system.


So you can prove damage through shock cooling? Wow! I know no one else
who
can. And where is the connection to the "engine control system"?


Presently, according to some COPA members, there are many people having
excessive engine wear and needing lots of cylinder work early. One
suspected reason is shock cooling due to pilots cutting throttle to get
the
plane down without gaining too much speed. The cirrus design simply
adds
more penalty to poor vertical planning than most planes, and so the
engine
is often asked to pay the price.

Another theory is that the engines are constanlty being run at set rpm's
that may not be the best rpm's or the smoothest. The pilot cannot
control
it.

Bottom line, the phony Fadec system isn't really all that good.


--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)

Sorry if I am calling your baby ugly, but...

It's not my baby, it's just an airplane. It also happens to be a
fantastic travelling machine that my family and I get more use from
than any plane before it.


Its an expression. You are not supposed to take it literally



I get information from lots of different pilots. That means that I may
end
up spreading some bad poop, but I am open to being refuted.

That, my friend, is the biggest understatement since, "Houston, we
have a problem"


Well, if you don't value the opinions and lessons from the people you meet
everyday, I am sorry for you.


The information you are disagreeing with mostly comes from a very
experienced pilot who is a COPA member, but does not own a Cirrus. I
have
no reason to suspect his lack of objectivity or that he has an axe to
grind.
He is very knowledgeable.

Let's see, experienced pilot, a member of COPA (so he has at least
$50), supposedly objective, and very knowledgeable. Well, I fit that
description and I also have about 300 hours in the SR22, have been
through the Cirrus factory training, an IFR rating, a lot of other
flying hours in Cessna 152s, 172s, 172RGs, 182s, T-6 Texans, T-28
Trojans, competed nationally in gliders for 10 years, and my wife
thinks I am very knowledgeable. With all of that going for me, I am
going to tell you right now that Cessnas are the most unsafe plane in
the air, I heard that the wings were falling off of them as soon as
they passed through 1,000' AGL and people were dying every day in
them. This must be true, I am more qualified than your 'friend'.


Hmm, I would say this fellow is about your peer, but obviously he is more
objective if that is your opinion about Cessna (which it obviously is not).


I know someone who recently aquired an SR 22 on brokerage, so perhaps I
will
be able to get a better experience with the plane. Cirrus reps do not
demonstrate the plane well enough for people to make a decision, you are
right about that.

Hmmmmm. I have read post after post made by YOU, 'Dude' person, that
has proclaimed the Cirrus is just plain unsafe. Yet, now you are
saying that you may have an opportunity to "...get a better experiance
with the plane". So you are willing to get in and fly it, huh? I
don't think I could have shot a bigger hole in your credibility
myself.


Let me get my position perfectly clear. I am not willing to state that the
SR22 or SR20 are "unsafe". I am willing to say that they are relatively
less safe than most of their competitors. I am much in favor of improving or
changing the design. I have made suggestions on changes that you disagree
with, but then you have no problem with the planes record so I would expect
that. I have stated that there are people on this board whose experience is
such that I would fly with them in just about anything they judged safe for
the flight. I would feel safe with a pilot with your record, and if I go up
in an SR22 I will be going with a very experienced pilot.

I can take guesses about what to do to improve Cirrus' safety record, and
you could likely do better. However, you would first have to decide that
there should be change.


My only agenda is safety, and frankly, Cirrus has a poor rating. You
can
make excuses all day, but the facts are the facts. They have killed too
many people in too short of time with too few planes. Has Cirrus done
good
things for aviation, maybe they have. On the other hand, maybe they are
hurting it with their bad record.

I didn't know I made an excuse, where was it? Help me here. And yes,
facts are facts, this is exactly what I am trying to help you with.
The rest of this paragraph doesn't justify a response, hyperbole.


I didn't know you did either. My use of "you" was intended to be read like
"one". Perhaps I should me more careful since I obviously hit a sore spot
with you. I would not agree with your hyperbole opinion. I put into
english what the statistic says. At what rate per 100,000 do you think its
too much? Are you willing to draw a line?



Have you thought to consider the black eye that BRS has over this whole
thing? The anti parachute crowd has lots of ammo now, thanks to Cirrus.
How about the anti composite folks? I think composites are safer, but
thanks to Cirrus, it doesn't necessarily look that way in reality.

BRS has a black eye!!?? How? I know there are SIX people walking
around alive today because of it. Look, I will admit that I was not
crazy about the 'chute when I bought the plane, I asked the salesman
several times why they couldn't just leave it out on my plane. I can
think of a lot of better ways to use 60 lbs. But you know what, now,
I kinda' like knowing it's there. Gives my wife a warm and fuzzy
feeling too.
And what about this 'anti parachute crowd' and the 'anti composite
folks' you mention? Are they a club? Do they have a website? How do
you get in touch with them? Did they have a seminar at Sun-N-Fun?
Are the members of the 'anti parachute' crowd depressed that those six
people are walking around today?



You are taking me too literally, then using that to argue with me. Its not
getting either of us anywhere. No they are not an organization, but if you
go to the archives, you will see that they are of similar minds.

If only BRS equipped plane in the market has a bad safety record, then it
cannot reflect well on BRS. We are all glad for the people who were saved
by the chute. Unfortunately, we have several others who were not saved. We
really cannot make a positive judgement on the subject without using
subjective anecdotal evidence or relying on the numbers. I choose the
numbers. For one thing, the weight and balance effect the chute has on the
plane, as well as the psychological effect on the pilot are hard to measure
without a statistic.


Whether anyone can recover from a spin @1000 feet is an interesting
discussion, but you are using it as a straw dog. I don't care what the
answer is, I know that if you take off in a Cirrus, and I take off in
almost
any other new single, the odds are in my favor. Enjoy getting there
faster,
those few saved minutes may be a large percentage of the rest of your
life.

This sounds like the musings of a person desperately trying to justify
continued ownership of their current obsolete aircraft (if you even
have one).

If you want to continue with ad hominem attacks, I will simply start to
ignore your posts. There is simply no place for it. My airplane is not
obsolete, and even if I did not own one, that would not make my opinion any
less valuable. My neighbor does not own a plane anymore, he sold them all
after he lost his medical. I value his opinion highly. I also like to talk
about his P51 experience, and hope to fly one myself one day.

If you are trying to "win" an argument (which you apparently are) you should
have gone the hyperbole rout on this one. You would have had me.



I hope you are paying attention to all your fellow owners who are dying
and
being careful.

If YOU have an airplane, your fellow owners are dying too.


But not as fast as yours, that is my point. (you missed the real hyperbole
here again)



Lastly, if you want to make a point, correct my facts, spelling,
grammer, or
disagree with me, then that is great. I will likely learn from it. On
the
other hand, if you want to question my motives or insult me, stay on the
porch. We KNOW as an owner of an SR22 that you have an agenda, but I
would
rather take each post at face value rather than prejudging them.


Grammar is spelled with two 'a's. I have concluded you have
questionable motives because you have: 1)dedicated so much time being
critical of an airplane you have never flown

I am not dedicated to it at all. And have test flown the 20.

, 2) you don't even have a
basic knowledge of the plane's aerodynamic design goals,

I have a great understanding of the goals, its the results I don't like.

3) you have
attempted to pass off completely false information as gospel.

That is both an overstatement and in dispute. I claim no gospel here, and
admitted my info was second hand.


You are
a person with an agenda. I don't know what it is or why, but it's
there.

I love aviation, I want it to reduce increased insurance costs, I am
concerned about safety, I am a bit of a consumer watchdog. Happy?


As far as staying on the porch, well, when I get up from it is
not your call.

I am not worried, its perfectly within my ability to ignore your posts.

And how does ownership of an SR22 mean I have an
agenda? I don't care if you or any of the other people on this site
love 'em or hate 'em.

Because you have invested a lot of money and emotion in to your ownership
decision.

I do like hearing TRUTH though. This thread
was started by someone just looking for information about Cirrus
aircraft. You are not qualified to make a post on the subject.

This is a forum for discussion. You don't seem to like that. Perhaps you
should stop logging on. And BTW, I help many people with aircraft purchase
decisions. I tell pilots with your experience that they should buy a Cirrus
if that is what they want, but they should look into the quality record by
joining COPA and asking around. I tell people without the experience to
handle a serious plane to look at something with a better safety record.


Of
all the people that should be on the porch... And by the way, you have
made more than enough posts to eliminate anyone PREjudging you. Your
position is exceedingly clear, however poorly formulated. You have
attempted to portray yourself as some sort of unbiased, informed
expert while waving the safety banner to legitimize your opinions.
Particularly insidious, and not helpful to those seeking real
information.


If you wanted to change my mind about Cirrus, you are doing a bad job. If
you had refuted my posts without attacking or judging me, then I would be
more inclined to listen. Instead, you have attacked me which makes me think
that you are just defensive because you own the plane, and want to defend
its value and your decision to buy one. Why would you want to prejudge me,
or how you would prejudge me is useless. Pay attention to the post.

If I said things that were not true, it was not intentional. I am fully
capable of learning new things, and changing my opinion. I have said
nothing here that has not been said before many times. Get over it.

As for my bias, you are sure that I have one, but ONLY because you disagree
with me? Yet, the basis of our disagreement is not even getting discussed in
this post. You can argue the details, yet you cannot refute the fatalities.
We can either ignore them and make you happy, or discuss them and make you
uncomfortable. I will risk your ire to see if we can come up with a fix.

"Dude" wrote in message
...
Cirrus could improve their situation vastly by adding speed breaks.

This could reduce the stalls, at least on approach. It would also reduce
the severe shock cooling they are seeing due to their engine control
system.


Popping the speed brakes at approach speeds would aggravate the stall
condition, not alleviate it.

I'm not sure speed brakes would help. They would probably hurt, in
fact!

On Sun, 25 Apr 2004 17:30:07 GMT, "Dude" wrote:

Cirrus could improve their situation vastly by adding speed breaks.

This could reduce the stalls, at least on approach. It would also reduce
the severe shock cooling they are seeing due to their engine control system.

I believe I have seen Cirrus claim the plane can be revovered from a spin
normally, but experience to date has so far shown that may not be that easy.



"C J Campbell" wrote in message
...

"Doug Vetter" wrote in message
et...

The SR20's limit of 12000 hours is still too limiting, IMHO, but I can
appreciate the FAA's conservatism regarding any new (indeed
revolutionary) design.

I was told by a Diamond rep that the Diamond aircraft do not have airframe
life limits. I would consider them to be just as revolutionary as the
Cirrus. However, I have not looked up the Diamond's type certificates to
verify the rep's claims.


However, I must disagree with the comment about the airplanes "falling
out of the sky" -- we just touched on this in Jay's thread. This has
NOTHING to do with the airplane. It has EVERYTHING to do with pilots
with more money than skill flying them.

Actually, it has EVERYTHING (sic) to do with the airplane, whether it is
some design flaw that causes them to disintegrate or whether it is a
design
flaw that makes them too difficult to fly for the pilots that are buying
them.

In any event, I think the FAA will eventually order Cirrus to get to the
bottom of it, no matter what the cause. The FAA nearly grounded Cirrus
with
the first rash of accidents. I doubt that their patience with Cirrus is
unlimited.

The pilot in Florida had 600 hours in type, was instrument rated, and was
a
founder of the Cirrus Pilots Association. That does not fit the
description
of "more money than skill."

The Cirrus cannot recover from a spin or even an incipient spin. Pilots
are
supposed to deploy the chute if the Cirrus enters a spin. Fine, if you are
900' AGL or more. Probably more, if the chute takes longer to deploy when
the airplane is in a spin. So a departure stall or approach stall in this
airplane is going to be far more dangerous than in other aircraft.

And let us be clear he stalls were a factor in a large percentage of
the
Cirrus accidents so far.

Given that the most common GA accident is low level maneuvering: the slick
design of the Cirrus, the inadequate flaps, the poor stall handling
abilities, pilot unfamiliarity with the new equipment (which also keeps
pilots' eyes inside the cockpit), poor maintenance and quality control,
and
the inability of the parachute to deploy at low altitude all seem to me to
add up to a lot of trouble.