Just to correct one point. The deicing system worked on only one vacuum pump through the 1982 models. For the 1983 N models, and the R models, Cessna changed the setup to where it was like a twin, 2 400 series vacuum pumps, both plumbed into the deicing boots. Aside from redundancy, this also doubled the inflating air supply and made the system much better at shedding ice. FWIW, I have had pretty good results with all three deicing setups on the P210, but they did get more effective with each incremental improvement. No piston airplane will be great in ice, but in my experience the P210 does pretty well. I live in Oregon, and we do get quite a bit of ice here. Even if a plane is FIKI, you can still get more ice than the deicing system can handle, this applies to the P210 as well as any booted piston light plane. Boots are there to facilitate getting out of icing conditions, not for flying along in icing conditions.

Well, I have read the books and shopped for a T210. Bought one too.

Is it a perfect system? No.

However, you stated that "About 1/2 of the 210 fleet has been geared up" and I, again, will call BS on this. If you have data to back this up I'd love to see it, but otherwise you're just disparaging a plane with bad data.

I'm more than happy to have a conversation about the design of the gear system, but let's not put false 'data' into the discussion please.

Robert

P.S. Full disclosure: Ironically, my T210 had a gear up before I owned it. No fault of the plane though - Pilot just got stupid. I've also had a nose gear collapse on my 421 (that was expensive...) and been involved in an investigation for a geared up Bonanza. Sometimes I think the Cirrus guys have it right!