There is one and only one thing I dislike about the Cirrus.
My aircraft is 50 years old. Its going strong. Yes, it can be very expensive to maintain, but there are no regular maintenance items that aren't found on any other GA airplane. When the Cirrus get as old (and valueless) as my aircraft, they'll likely be scrapped. No matter what, you have to pay for that chute repack every 10 years. Right now I think its $15K, and that will likely rise in the future. I doubt anyone is going to pay that for a vintage airframe that isn't worth that much. Eventually they'll all be scrapped well before their time. That I don't like.
Definitely valid points, unfortunately composites don't cosmetically last very long baking in the sun, however many of the G3 and later models are better at that, and the airframe is built to last 12,000 hrs.. if you fly 100 hrs per year the plane will last 120 years.. if you fly 200 hrs per year, then 60 years.. and if you're putting 400 hrs on it per year you're still looking at 30 years. I doubt outside of the training fleet most privately owned Mooney, Bo, Cirrus, Lancair are flying that long.. I mode the mode is 50-120 hrs.. they *should* last
-the chute.. true, but that's an assumed evil when you buy one of these, and, for better or worse, is one of the primary reasons many people do buy this plane. Spread out over the cost of 10 years I'm pretty sure feeding a second engine on a twin will cost at least as much as the chute repack, and likely result in more headaches with twice the oil changes, and in general twice the likelihood of some engine issue to contend with
What? It doesn't make the phone call for you? I guess that will be G7
You speak in jest, however, with the Garmin autoland making radio calls for you on the latest Piper and Vision Jet this might very well only be a matter of time. "Okay Cirrus, start the engine" .. "I'm sorry Dave, but I can't do that. You are over max gross and will jeopardize the mission"
If only Mooney had put some serious effort into something at least partially that good.
There *is* a market for the Mooney.. but many people I talk to around airports and FBOs don't even know they're still in business (I'm talking pre-Nov 2019 temporary closing). I know many cringe at it, but the reality is that the people you want to sell planes to are in the 25-45 age group, most of these folks are on social media, etc. Creating a Mooney equivalent of #CirrusLife and all the stuff that goes along with it would have been a great way to keep selling the plane. Apple and Tesla are good examples of this. Most people who buy a Macbook will never do more with than check email surf the web.. something a $400 Walmart Acer could do.. but they spend $2G+ on Macbooks thanks to marketing
It would be nice if the app could tell you all your database statuses
YES! Hopefully that's coming.. I wonder how much of this is Cirrus proprietary and how much is through Garmin.. and what the likelihood is of seeing this in other AC