Sounds no harder than having to explain it has only one engine.

Further, you have to explain why, compared to the twin jets, it is so slow, so low altitude, and just as expensive to fly.

You can also explain the safety record for twin jets which is outstanding.

You also have to explain the chute doesn't work near the ground.

If your spouse is incapable of understanding those arguments, you could probably put a button on the panel labeled "CHUTE" and they would feel comforted by that, despite the fact the button does nothing.




Single plus chute is not simpler or easier than twin jet for the pilot. The single plus chute pilot has to deal with the complexity of failures in those areas where the chute does not work (near the ground, for example). Even at higher altitude, engine failure is far more complex for the single than the twin.

Having one engine does not make the plane simpler, nor meaningfully change the pilot training effort. Buying a single jet thinking it will be simpler is a false premise.

Mike C.

People buy houses, cars, boats and airplanes with their heart. In fact they buy most things emotionally. All you need to do is capture imagination and you're good to go.

Look at PPR or LVMH consortiums - they own almost every luxury brand in the world. Luxury has great margins and it's a market that has kept growing and growing. It is impervious to downturns, price or even logic. Cirrus is a luxury goods manufacturer just like Hublot or Louis Vuitton. All they need to do is capture the imagination, which they already have, and they'll sell loads of them.

My spouse is incapable of understanding any logical argument... but she's the boss! I usually have the final word which boils down to "yes my dear".

Perhaps I could put a button on her forehead and label it EJECT for those times where logic means nothing and I would feel comforted by that, despite the fact the button does nothing.... I probably would be summarily executed a short while after.

My take on this is that unlike the SR series, the chute's purpose in the SF50 is only to address engine-out issues in a single engine jet. If the engine quits you activate CAPS, the AFCS puts the airplane in the deployment envelope and "bang".

What happens in other failure modes? Good question.

Here are my random guesses: Maybe it's not just a handle in the SF50. Maybe it's a button and a handle. If you're in an unusual attitude/disorientation situation you push the BLUE AFCS button and it fixes it. If the airframe is intact, and the engine quits you push the RED button and the AFCS ensures that you are below VPD and then it fires the 'chute. If everything's $#!t, grabbing the handle will immediately say a hail Mary and fire the rocket and maybe it works, maybe it doesn't.

That is what Lear thought, then Cessna introduced the Citation which proved small jets were about being practical.

The SF50 is a luxury item only because it doesn't exist yet. Once it exists, the gulf between the dream and reality will take the shine off the luxury.

One thing about luxury items is that they lose value really fast. The luxury addicts don't buy used stuff. The SF50 will lose value really fast, so in that sense it could be considered a luxury item, basically an item where the majority of the value is in the idea of owning it, not in using it.

Mike C.

A jet engine fails about 50 times less often than a piston engine.

If you look at the SR series, there have not been 50 engine failures which led to a chute pull in ~7 million flight hours. The SF50 might not have a true engine failure in decades. Witness the TBM and PC12 accident history, exceptionally few engine failure fatalities, and a jet engine is more reliable than a turboprop engine.

What that means is the vast majority of chute pulls for the SF50 will be something OTHER than engine failures.


The Matrix choice.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_pill_and_blue_pill

The SF50 chute is not quite the simple emergency system one hopes it would be.

Mike C.

My spouse is incapable of understanding any logical argument... but she's the boss! I usually have the final word which boils down to "yes my dear".

Perhaps I could put a button on her forehead and label it EJECT for those times where logic means nothing and I would feel comforted by that, despite the fact the button does nothing.... I probably would be summarily executed a short while after.

Maybe we can start selling EJECT buttons! We probably already have 600 interested customers....

OK, I get that some people (well, Mike...) don't like the fact that the Cirrus Jet only has one engine, and two would have been better. Fine. I also get that you can purchase used lets (Mustang, etc) for less. Fine.

However, let's compare the Cirrus to its nearest NEW AIRPLANE competitor: The TBM850.

The TBM850 is about $3.5m, has slightly more range and about the same speed. I think the TBM has a little more full fuel payload, but not actually sure.

Assuming the CJ comes in around $2-$2.5m, wouldn't they start stealing sales from the TBM?

In other words, why would someone spend at least $1m more on a TBM instead of a Cirrus Jet?

Robert

At 2-2.5M, the SF50's nearest "new airplane" contender is not the TBM 850 although it probably would be in the mix. I'd say it is Piper's M500/600 series which sell for 2.4/2.8M.

The SF50 arguably has better numbers than the Pipers and costs nearly 1M less than the TBM. This, of course, assumes the SF50's price will be 2-2.5M - we will soon see.

I wouldn't necessarily compare SF50 to Louis Vuitton bag (the former actually has a purpose), but I sat in the cockpit of SF50 at Sun'n Fun, and I loved it. It feels like cockpit of shuttlecraft from Starship Enterprise. Cirrus will sell lots of SF50s just on the look and feel of that cockpit alone.

I just just came back from the AERO aviation fair in Friedrichshafen, where the mockup of the SF50 stood beside the new Eclipse and also the Honda jet.

All have 6 seats, comparable space, the VLJs have a better range, at comparable cost, have two fans and do look like real airplanes and not like a mother whale with its baby on the back.

Can anyone tell me what's the hype with the SF50 ??

The false perception that being a single makes it more economical or simpler.

It is a jet being sold by a piston aircraft company to piston pilots. No jet aircraft company wants to make a single, no jet pilot wants to fly a single.

Mike C.

The V-tail.

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What's the hype with the Cirrus?