Straight ahead 20deg left or right, demo flight.

Among all the SEJ wannabees, most tried to certify to FL410 or similar high altitudes. PiperJet, DiamondJet, EA400, Stratos, etc. They never made it.

Cirrus was the only one to acknowledge that an SEJ won't get to high altitude. They accepted the fact the plane would be crippled by this.

They specifically stated they were building the slowest, lowest jet. After great effort, and nearly bankrupting the company, they managed to do. They took 13 years from initial work to first delivery. So much for an SEJ being easier to design, build, and deliver.

Not a single established maker of twin jets even lifting a finger to enter the SEJ market. They know it is a dead end.

Mike C.

That is the selection criteria for the crash site?

This is no 172. You have one ton of fuel and a plane that weighs ~6000 lbs. You are not going to find too many places to put that down safely around most airports.

Mike C.

Options given by the rep, for an engine out.

Among all the SEJ wannabees, most tried to certify to FL410 or similar high altitudes. PiperJet, DiamondJet, EA400, Stratos, etc. They never made it.

Cirrus was the only one to acknowledge that an SEJ won't get to high altitude. They accepted the fact the plane would be crippled by this.

They specifically stated they were building the slowest, lowest jet. After great effort, and nearly bankrupting the company, they managed to do. They took 13 years from initial work to first delivery. So much for an SEJ being easier to design, build, and deliver.

Not a single established maker of twin jets even lifting a finger to enter the SEJ market. They know it is a dead end.

Mike C.

Among all the SEJ wannabees, most tried to certify to FL410 or similar high altitudes. PiperJet, DiamondJet, EA400, Stratos, etc. They never made it.

Cirrus was the only one to acknowledge that an SEJ won't get to high altitude. They accepted the fact the plane would be crippled by this.

They specifically stated they were building the slowest, lowest jet. After great effort, and nearly bankrupting the company, they managed to do. They took 13 years from initial work to first delivery. So much for an SEJ being easier to design, build, and deliver.

Not a single established maker of twin jets even lifting a finger to enter the SEJ market. They know it is a dead end.

Mike C.

Which, if I recall, is why they sold the company to the Chinese around that time.

Mike can't admit that he was wrong about the SF50, so now he has to constantly remind us that he still doesn't understand the entry level jet market at all. I am not sure what he thinks he is accomplishing, but it's nothing positive.

For us lowly single-engine piston pounders, this thread is rather entertaining (I'm especially impressed at how worked up some folks can get over another person's opinion -- it's as though the art of selective reading has disappeared). I enjoy reading the different perspectives about a plane that is well beyond my budget. Even if someone gave me one, I wouldn't want to pay the tax, insurance, fuel and MX bills. But it is fun to fantasize about flying at 300 KTS plus and burning Jet A, so keep the dialogue going please.

Stratos got to FL410, apparently:

https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news ... completion

The SF50 seems like a weak performer that is a market success. Kudos to Cirrus. I'm not really sure how many more they would have produced had they made a "better plane." And of course "jet" people aren't buying the SF50, that's not the target demographic. That's like saying that Toyota whiffed it with the Prius because people with horse trailers aren't buying them.

I complement Cirrus for their success for in the Vision Jet. They created:

1. Approachable, easy to fly, safety first, jet.
2. Great cabin for 4 people and anything they want to take.
3. An airplane that can fit into T-Hangar. No other jet I know of can. To get a hangar in Bozeman that will handle a jet is $1mm+. Go look, cheapest one is $2.8mm just for the hangar. T hangars are listing for $400k+.
4. Easy upgrade path for SR22 pilots, with the familiarity of Cirrus (The Cirrus Life).
5. A jet! Whatever you want to say about it, non flyers look at planes as propellers or jets. I know that's how my wife looks at it. A SETP doesn't mean anything to her. It has a prop. Might as well be a Cessna 172.

The challenges are:

1. Range and payload tradeoff. It's a 2 person plane if you want to travel far.
2. Only one source of maintenance support - Cirrus Jet Stream. And it's not inexpensive and starts at 150 hours annual usage
3. One source of type rating and recurrent - Cirrus. I have heard of limited sim time availability with all their growth.
4. Lots for sale. I believe two things are happening: either the SR22 pilot is stepping up and not able/liking living in the world of jet costs (seen a few that are selling to trade down to an SR22) or flying it for a few hundred hours and realizing they want more capability and trading up into a light jet.

Opportunities:

1. Short wings make for less fuel. I think they will bridge their original design philosophy and add longer wings with more fuel and higher FLs.
2. Improved payload (longer wings).
3. Higher FL's (longer wings), less fuel burn - more range.

I could be wrong here, but I have some memory to this line of thought being a driving reason for Textron to stop making the Mustang. They knew that these pilots would eventually move up to the M2 or CJ3 for more performance/range/etc., and there were enough Mustangs on the used market at some point to satisfy the "step" into the jet world.

Not sure what you mean by that. The M2, PC24, CJ4, Phenom 300 are all SP and are new/currently being produced. Wait, by owner flown do you mean small? I regularly fly with 8 people so no SETP will work for me except a PC12. Nor would an SF50 (and I was coming from an SR22). The M2 is definitely targeted at owner-flown. Idk if there is a niche for a "new" Mustang. I would think there are some people that only need 6 seats but want jet speeds but Idk if it's enough.

Not certified.

They can flight test to anything they want, but it is entirely a different issue to certify it to those altitudes.


The better analogy would be if the Prius got 25 MPG, then people would question why the design failed to achieve the performance that underlying technology should be capable of.

Mike C.