Cirrus SR22 Purchase advice needed.

Thomas Borchert wrote:

only if the design is at fault. Is it?

It is a new design (gasp!) and doesn't come from Cessna (gasp!!) and
doesn't handle like a truck (gasp!!!), so there *must* be something wrong.

Stefan

Stefan,

only if the design is at fault. Is it?

It is a new design (gasp!) and doesn't come from Cessna (gasp!!) and
doesn't handle like a truck (gasp!!!), so there *must* be something wrong.


We're on the same page. Oh, and those that say in earnest what you said in
mocking them would add, after five minutes: "There's WAY too little
innovation in GA!"

--
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,

If I said things that were not true, it was not intentional.


Sorry, but that's just plain ridiculous. Just two quotes:

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 ...

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

That kind of hyberloe wasn't intentional? Yeah, right.


--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)

If I said things that were not true, it was not intentional.


Sorry, but that's just plain ridiculous. Just two quotes:


It is not ridiculous, and I stand by it. You are confusing Hyperbole with
falsehood.


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 ...


Hyperbole yes, false, no. These are not the facts in question. The only
fact that is in question is whether the single lever operation of the TCM
engine which regulates it to 2500 or 2700 rpm only, combined with the plane
being a challenge to slow down, is causing engine problems.

This was explained to me as being a problem identified by COPA members, and
was one of the reasons the pilot who told it to me decided against the
plane. If he was in error, then I have passed on some bad poop, but
frankly, I don't see any reason why he would make this up.

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


That kind of hyberloe wasn't intentional? Yeah, right.


As I stated, I was angered by the other gentleman's statements, and I have
pointed out and admitted the hyperbole myself. That does not make my
statements false, it just means that I exagerated for the sake of impact.

Let's get this all quite straight. The argument is not over whether the
record is good or bad, it is over whether the record accurately reflects the
safety of the plane. One can state that there is not enough data, or that
the data is skewed, but I disagree. No one is taking me to task on that at
all. My response is that a million fleet hours is enough, and that the data
is not skewed because it is reflective of the rest of the GA fleet.

You can argue ad hominem, you can argue motive, and you can knock down some
of my supportive data; however, can you make a case for the other side? How
many hours do you want to see? How many fatalaties is too many? What
statistic or basis would you like to use?

monitor point seven writes:

I'd say being spin-prone (and unrecoverable) is a design flaw.

What makes you think that it is spin-prone?

From what I've read here, I wouldn't touch a Cirrus with a 10-foot pole.

Neither would I, but little of what I've read here is factual. It
*is* usenet, after all.

"Dave Katz" wrote in message
...

Neither would I, but little of what I've read here is factual. It
*is* usenet, after all.

And these are the same people that provide/evaluate evidence in court cases?
SCARY!!!

Dude,

The argument is not over whether the
record is good or bad, it is over whether the record accurately reflects the
safety of the plane. One can state that there is not enough data, or that
the data is skewed, but I disagree. No one is taking me to task on that at
all.


Yes, I do.

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)

If your position is that there is not enough data, then I would assert that
you should make a statement at which time there will be enough data. How
many fleet hours are enough, and what fatality rate is acceptable at that
time? I have said it before and not gotten any answer from anyone.

If your standard is not objective, then you are all to likely to fudge it
when the time comes. IMO, it is not enough to say something is insufficient
unless you are willing to say what is sufficient.

If you cannot set a mark, perhaps you could state what constrains you so
that we could creatively take that into account. Perhaps we throw out the
data from before they started factory training? That may be a valuable
exercise.

Perhaps you just think that the statistic, or any statisitc is not useful?


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

The argument is not over whether the
record is good or bad, it is over whether the record accurately reflects
the
safety of the plane. One can state that there is not enough data, or
that
the data is skewed, but I disagree. No one is taking me to task on that
at
all.


Yes, I do.

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)

On Wed, 28 Apr 2004 16:20:02 GMT, "Richard Kaplan"
wrote:



"Aaron Coolidge" wrote in message
...

I would say that the two airplanes are very comparable in terms of power,
speed, range, price, payload flexability, etc.

A huge difference is that the Mooney can be equipped to be known-ice
certified.

I was just looking at an SR-22 complete with a weeping wing de-ice
system. You mean they put all that on it and it still can't go near
ice?

With fixed landing gear it is about 20 knots faster than my highly
modified Debonair (bout the same as an F-33, just not as nice inside)

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com

For anyone spending $300K on a serious IFR airplane, it is hard for me to
imagine how/why this is not a dealbreaker for Cirrus.

--------------------
Richard Kaplan, CFII

www.flyimc.com