Buying 25 of them.

http://www.aero-news.net/index.cfm?Cont ... 3ccba7a64&

Both, northern MN and North Dakota switched to republican representatives in the house. Both received plum committee assignments. The airforce doesn't bite the hand that feeds it.

...the Distinguished Gentleman from China?

If they're good enough for Purdue, they're certainly good enough for the Air Force Academy.

I get the impression that Purdue has had some second thoughts, though....

Those are the same people who thought that the Slingsby Firefly was a good idea.

Ouch.

Come on, Florian. It's not always politics. What other option did they have? If you want to provide flight training to the Cadets, you want a modern airframe/avionics package that is built in the USA. Diamond aircraft is from Europe, and the rest have engines that are too big or they are in old airframes (or they're an LSA).

172? Worked great for decades. With the G1000, it could have been the T-41E. Or new G500 Archers? Or 12 G36s or so for the price of the 25 SR20s. If the T-34 could serve as an introductory pilot trainer in the 50s and 60s, why wouldn't the G36 work for that now?

Come on, Florian. It's not always politics. What other option did they have? If you want to provide flight training to the Cadets, you want a modern airframe/avionics package that is built in the USA. Diamond aircraft is from Europe, and the rest have engines that are too big or they are in old airframes (or they're an LSA).

Last I heard, the UND flight program parked their Cirri trainers due to unreliability in the high cycle flight training environment. A fighter jock probably made this decision after seeing the side stick.

There was a big dust-up in in MN a few years ago when the state chose A36 over Cirrus to replace the MNDOT fleet. It was funny watching the state and the pilots try to explain why the A36 was a better value at twice the cost.

It was one time I couldn't disagree with their spending logic, But the media sure made a big deal out of the price and not going with the local manufacturer.

Greg

Not sure I quite understand your reference regarding the side stick...I think you are saying that a fighter pilot within the AF liked the Cirrus because of the side stick and elected to buy the cirrus but it appears that you may be saying a fighter jock at UND decided to park their airplanes because of the unreliability and side stick. As a fighter pilot myself I had a choice and bought a bonanza. Does the same apply to my decision?

Cirrus owned by China. Makes perfect sense.

It doesn't take much for a dustup in MN it seems. The outrage is usually driven by that fish-wrap out of Minneapolis.

The DOT guys fly around and fix the DOT owned nav facilities like some of the runway lights and most of the little 'terminal' VORs at the rural airports. I imagine they needed some space for their tool boxes.

As opposed to the DA40 that has a center stick ?

The way I understand it Cirrus priced their offer quite aggressively, including the things that go into those contracts like spare-part supply guarantees etc.