A Cirrus Piston Twin - Practical?

Sinistar

Sinistar

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Brad
Clearly Cirrus is doing something right and making some darned nice airplanes. A parachute across all models, now a jet with autoland and a trainer that will probably sell quite well. So it had me wondering....could Cirrus pull off a piston twin? Would there be a market for it given all the aging piston twins. Could they still have a chute? Maybe something like:

7 Seats (2front + 2 + 2 + 1)
Retract
Twin turbo xxxhp engines
Say 270mph cruise up at altitude (so a bit faster than a Aerostar)
35gph leaned out
160gal with option for more.
If possible steal from the 602P series aerostart and have counter rotating props
Pressurized
AC
FIKI
Air-stair door
Auto-Land
The iPhone app :)
Priced about halfway between a SR22T and SF50

...so a bit larger than the SF50 or SR22 for the bigger family or business. Something faster and more modern than the older twins. Maybe funky options like trade the 7th seat for a commode. Something bigger and faster than the new Barron's or Diamond Twins but more like the DA62 yet faster and at least 1 more seat.
 
Sinistar said:
Clearly Cirrus is doing something right and making some darned nice airplanes. A parachute across all models, now a jet with autoland and a trainer that will probably sell quite well. So it had me wondering....could Cirrus pull off a piston twin? Would there be a market for it given all the aging piston twins. Could they still have a chute? Maybe something like:

7 Seats (2front + 2 + 2 + 1)
Retract
Twin turbo xxxhp engines
Say 270mph cruise up at altitude (so a bit faster than a Aerostar)
35gph leaned out
160gal with option for more.
If possible steal from the 602P series aerostart and have counter rotating props
Pressurized
AC
FIKI
Air-stair door
Auto-Land
The iPhone app :)
Priced about halfway between a SR22T and SF50

...so a bit larger than the SF50 or SR22 for the bigger family or business. Something faster and more modern than the older twins. Maybe funky options like trade the 7th seat for a commode. Something bigger and faster than the new Barron's or Diamond Twins but more like the DA62 yet faster and at least 1 more seat.
Click to expand...

Most of the point of having a chute is to get most of the upside of a second engine with little of the downside... so no, it doesn’t make sense to me at all. Personally I’d rather have the second engine than the chute....


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
The only reason to offer a piston twin would be for a larger load. Their thinking is the chute mitigates the need for a second engine from a safety standpoint. I think if they do go for a 6 seat model it will likely be a turbo prop as there aren’t many piston engines out there that can get the performance people expect out of a modern 6 seat airplane.
 
Gotta agree. The "ELOS" line of thinking has me believing my second mill is worth a chute in trade.

Plus when a, ahem, under-talented Cirrus Twin pilot forgets to clean up the dead engine, gets slow, and the thing enters a Vmc roll... I'm guessing the violence would be too much for even a chute to un-fornicate and "save"

I think the cabin of the jet with a turboprop on the nose makes more sense to me. That cabin is gorgeous.
 
I think if you have enough disposable cash for a 1.5 million twin, you got 2.3 million for a jet. With operating costs not much more than the twin.
 
Velocity173 said:
I think if you have enough disposable cash for a 1.5 million twin, you got 2.3 million for a jet. With operating costs not much more than the twin.
Click to expand...
While true they could have different markets. A Piston twin should have a larger payload than the jet.
 
gsengle said:
Most of the point of having a chute is to get most of the upside of a second engine with little of the downside... so no, it doesn’t make sense to me at all. Personally I’d rather have the second engine than the chute....


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
I would say, as far as safety, chute is more versatile than a second engine - if can save your ass in quite a few more scenarios than just an engine outs.... just don’t try it over a large body of water :)
 
Warmi said:
I would say, as far as safety, chute is more versatile than a second engine - if can save your ass in quite a few more scenarios than just an engine outs.... just don’t try it over a large body of water :)
Click to expand...

It may be cost effective but nothing is more versatile than having something that keeps you flying all the way to a runway. That can save you even at low altitude. And that contributes rather than reduces performance...


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
No. The DA62 is barely selling.. outside of the chute you basically described a DA62

The DA62 and SR22 are at the upper end of what people will pay for piston power. The DA62 at least has crazy low gph engines, 16 combined, and can burn JetA. But a twin SR22 (SR44?) would be a whopping 30-40 combined if they kept those Continental 550 engines.. I doubt you get twice, or even 1.5 times the speed or useful, hell the DA62 is slower
 
falconkidding said:
2.3 mil jet 8 900k single not a huge market for a 1.5 mill twin imho.
Click to expand...
This. Any self respecting rich CEO or tech mogul is going jet, not piston. And for insurance purposes, owner flown single pilot twin engine is a harder sell - see: the countless 300 and 400 series Cessna crashes every month. So they would make an unsellable product, dropping millions into development and certification, and then get sued like crazy when the few that doe sell are balled up by Rich CEOs with get-there-its in icing at night.
 
Sinistar said:
Clearly Cirrus is doing something right and making some darned nice airplanes. A parachute across all models, now a jet with autoland and a trainer that will probably sell quite well. So it had me wondering....could Cirrus pull off a piston twin? Would there be a market for it given all the aging piston twins. Could they still have a chute? Maybe something like:

7 Seats (2front + 2 + 2 + 1)
Retract
Twin turbo xxxhp engines
Say 270mph cruise up at altitude (so a bit faster than a Aerostar)
35gph leaned out
160gal with option for more.
If possible steal from the 602P series aerostart and have counter rotating props
Pressurized
AC
FIKI
Air-stair door
Auto-Land
The iPhone app :)
Priced about halfway between a SR22T and SF50

...so a bit larger than the SF50 or SR22 for the bigger family or business. Something faster and more modern than the older twins. Maybe funky options like trade the 7th seat for a commode. Something bigger and faster than the new Barron's or Diamond Twins but more like the DA62 yet faster and at least 1 more seat.
Click to expand...

Can Cirrus do so? Yes. Will they, no way.
They could have made life a lot easier and gone twin turbine.
Also, you number is low. I used to cruise 265 KTAS; which is a fair amount faster than 270 mph.

Tim
 
yeah, no. Agree with the idea that a twin seems to fit into an empty niche. Seems to me that a twin needs to be a low end trainer just to get folks through the rating and building some time.... so much lower cost and efficient for schools to operate
But I'm hoping by the time I win the lottery cirrus has a 5 place high wing version for me to consider
 
Cirrus has a Chinese owner, and I can imagine that owner would be interested in something that makes sense in China, if they are to pay to develop another airframe. Not sure what that would be — maybe nothing at all, since GA doesn’t seem to be happening in China.
 
A single pilot twin engine jet with parachute and similar spacious interior as the SF50 would make more sense.

Realistically, they will just continue improving current models with technology advancements.
 
Tecnam and Diamond already own the more-than-one training market. So going low makes no sense and going higher eats into the jet.
 
wheaties said:
Tecnam and Diamond already own the more-than-one training market. So going low makes no sense and going higher eats into the jet.
Click to expand...

Tecnam is not really in the same market. P2006T cruises at 135 knots ( vs 175 for D62 ) burns 9-10 gallons per hour ( vs 16 for D62 ) and retails for 430 k vs 1.3 million for D62.
 
Warmi said:
Tecnam is not really in the same market. P2006T cruises at 135 knots ( vs 175 for D62 ) burns 9-10 gallons per hour ( vs 16 for D62 ) and retails for 430 k vs 1.3 million for D62.
Click to expand...

You’re missing the DA-42, which is aimed at the same training market as Tecnam.
 
Tantalum said:
No. The DA62 is barely selling.. outside of the chute you basically described a DA62

The DA62 and SR22 are at the upper end of what people will pay for piston power. The DA62 at least has crazy low gph engines, 16 combined, and can burn JetA. But a twin SR22 (SR44?) would be a whopping 30-40 combined if they kept those Continental 550 engines.. I doubt you get twice, or even 1.5 times the speed or useful, hell the DA62 is slower
Click to expand...

Turbo 550s maybe. NA 550s like mine are in the 24-26gph range depending on the pilot's lead-footedness.

I love the DA62. I wonder who buys those things, though -- for the money, you can get a lot of punch with a TP single or even certain TP twins.
 
schmookeeg said:
Turbo 550s maybe. NA 550s like mine are in the 24-26gph range depending on the pilot's lead-footedness.

I love the DA62. I wonder who buys those things, though -- for the money, you can get a lot of punch with a TP single or even certain TP twins.
Click to expand...
DA62 is awesome, proper modern twin! But it's admittedly a small market to fill.. people with well over $1,000,000 to burn on a plane have a lot of options and unfortunately piston planes are usually not among it
 
NoHeat said:
Cirrus has a Chinese owner, and I can imagine that owner would be interested in something that makes sense in China, if they are to pay to develop another airframe. Not sure what that would be — maybe nothing at all, since GA doesn’t seem to be happening in China.
Click to expand...

Good point. Maybe their next design would be affordable trainers so they don't have to send people to the states for pilot training.
 
tspear said:
I used to cruise 265 KTAS
Click to expand...
But that was also in a properly bad a$$ plane. The Aerostar will forever be on my wishlist

Given the DA62's performance, I doubt Cirrus, or anyone, would be able to able to achieve Aerostar figures with the kind of purchase, operating costs and fuel efficiency today's buyer demands, while keeping costs low enough

At some point someone who is ready to spend that much cash on a plane is going to be looking at turbines.. you can get into a Piper turbine for less money, more reliability, speed, etc.
 
I'm not sure there is much room for an aircraft between the SR-22 and the SF50 jet. The price delta between them isn't that great, especially for their usual customer base. I can't imagine they could field a twin in the category for much less than the jet, so they would be just competing with their own product.
 
The only thing I can think that might be marketable in that gap would be a six place piston single.
 
flyer770 said:
The only thing I can think that might be marketable in that gap would be a six place piston single.
Click to expand...

I doubt it.

Tantalum said:
...At some point someone who is ready to spend that much cash on a plane is going to be looking at turbines.. you can get into a Piper turbine for less money, more reliability, speed, etc.
Click to expand...

^^^This.

Virtually impossible to compete with the used 6-place pressurized turbine market in that gap between the SR22 and their jet. And, these planes have no waiting time (although you also won't get the music and light show at the Delivery Center either, if that's vitally important to you. ;) ).

Just a few current listings as examples:

2015, 280 TT, asking $1.619 mil
https://www.controller.com/listings/aircraft/for-sale/190403035/2015-piper-meridian

2013, 940 TT, asking $1.395 mil
https://www.controller.com/listings/aircraft/for-sale/165450291/2013-piper-meridian

2014, 700 TT, asking $1.450 mil
https://www.controller.com/listings/aircraft/for-sale/70819687/2014-piper-meridian

2103, 850 TT, asking $1.399 mil
https://www.controller.com/listings/aircraft/for-sale/189860963/2013-piper-meridian
 
Last edited:
GRG55 said:
I doubt it.
Click to expand...

Which is why I emphasized the word might. Cirrus is doing quite well for themselves and my money is on an improved jet in a few years, and marketing their trainer plane. Get them at both ends.
 
I'd rather see a retract single engine version. It could even shoot the chute if you go below pattern altitude without the gear down. ;)
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
Its actually been done.
Click to expand...

Thanks! I vaguely remembered that and Google could not come up with a "Cirrus Twin" image. Maybe it will now!

49425170256_5e9e457e0d_w.jpg
 
My thought about the single turbine market is this.... even if I were to win some unlimited lottery, I'm not so sure I'd be in that market because I'm flying for fun and that sorta becomes a flight level airline ride at that point. Capability to get up high and go places is nice, but a bit lower and slower is a niche I'm drawn to in my daydreams.....
 
schmookeeg said:
Gotta agree. The "ELOS" line of thinking has me believing my second mill is worth a chute in trade.

Plus when a, ahem, under-talented Cirrus Twin pilot forgets to clean up the dead engine, gets slow, and the thing enters a Vmc roll... I'm guessing the violence would be too much for even a chute to un-fornicate and "save"

I think the cabin of the jet with a turboprop on the nose makes more sense to me. That cabin is gorgeous.
Click to expand...
A Vmc roll would require the pilot to over-ride the Cirrus Envelope Protection System.
 
schmookeeg said:
under-talented Cirrus Twin pilot forgets to clean up the dead engine, gets slow, and the thing enters a Vmc roll... I'm guessing the violence would be too much for even a chute to un-fornicate and "save"
Click to expand...
hahaha, "unfornicate" - I have to use that at some point

But to Kenny's point.. I believe if Cirrus were to actually undertake a twin project it would have a pretty robust envelope protection and engine out automation, or at least assistance, that one might not find on older models. The DA62 videos and engine out demonstrations basically make it appear as a more or less "non event" with auto feathering of the dead engine, rudder boosting, etc.

But the whole point is moot.. Cirrus ain't gonna build a piston twin

Brad W said:
My thought about the single turbine market is this.... even if I were to win some unlimited lottery, I'm not so sure I'd be in that market because I'm flying for fun and that sorta becomes a flight level airline ride at that point. Capability to get up high and go places is nice, but a bit lower and slower is a niche I'm drawn to in my daydreams.....
Click to expand...
Not all turboprops are TBM / PC12.. the Caravan could fit the bill for your mission, or something like a Porter, etc
 
Tantalum said:
Not all turboprops are TBM / PC12.. the Caravan could fit the bill for your mission, or something like a Porter, etc
Click to expand...

For some reason I have always been partial to the Quest Kodiak.

Tim
 
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