Did you notice it was burning 650 pph maneuvering. I am guessing 1150 pph on takeoff. Not a plane that is economical doodling down low.

You can't do 300 KTAS anywhere near the ground (Vmo is 250 KIAS), so why do you need to slow to approach speeds at FL280? In under a minute?

I think you just praised the fact the plane has abnormally high drag.

Mike C.

You can't do 300 KTAS anywhere near the ground (Vmo is 250 KIAS), so why do you need to slow to approach speeds at FL280? In under a minute?

I think you just praised the fact the plane has abnormally high drag.

Mike C.

He sounded like a tool to me

Talking about the built-in XM weather: "Maybe the wind's kicking your butt and you want to go up or down to see if you can improve your situation. All of that's in the cockpit here."

The dude's at FL280! Going up is not an option; going down is not going to improve his situation.

That G3000 looks super nice though.

What to you sounded like a tool was a subjectively directed marketing effort with its target audience very much in mind.

No kidding.

His piston think is showing. An SR pilot with no turbine experience will think this is useful info. Not so much for an altitude limited jet.

If the headwinds are so bad that flying the SF50 lower than 270/280 makes sense, land and take the bus, it might get there faster since you are going to need a fuel stop every 300 nm.

Mike C.

Did you notice it was burning 650 pph maneuvering. I am guessing 1150 pph on takeoff. Not a plane that is economical doodling down low.

Very little is related to being a twin.

The "rattling speed" is basically the same in the terminal area.

CJs have simple systems.


If they can't fly a CJ, they can't fly an SF50.


We don't know yet why this happened, but we could just as easily be talking about that poor chap whose engine failed in the SF50 and how he would have lived in an CJ.


We have yet to have an objective assessment of the SF50 flying qualities. Cirrus has carefully kept that secret. You have presumed the SF50 is easier and more forgiving.

Mike C.

I think you are out of touch if you believe the target audience for the SF50 feels this way. Take your below average PPL with 300 hours total time in a turbo 22. You are Mr. CFII. Your job is to train that kid, and you only have 25 hours total time to do it. Oh yeah then you have to trust him to fly your family across the country 5 times in the middle of winter, at night. You going to pick an SF50, or a legacy CJ3 for that pilot

Given the cruise altitude and the low stall speed, I suspect that most engine out incidents won't end with a chute deployment but rather a deadstick landing on an airport. This has been done by SETPs, there is no reason it can't be done with the SF50. So I wouldn't expect the SF50 to behave that differently from the SETPs insurance wise.

I believe that the one thing that Cirrus inherently understands and markets for, is a simple airplane with 'built in' safety features. They realize that not all pilots are in the top 10%, in fact more than 95% of their market is outside of the top 10% pilots

Now that Mike is back from Europe, I'm betting on 300 pages.

Hey Mike, why don't you tell us about your time there, what did you fly etc instead of launching into Pepto Abysmal stuff straight up?

Operative word: "feels". Doesn't seem to matter what reality is, Cirrus has sold the impression the SF50 is "safe and easy" without any actual evidence backing that up. Further, they have created this impression you can be a lack luster pilot and fly it safely. This is among the most dangerous of things you can do in aviation, create a false sense of safety and ease. This bit Cirrus with the SR series and resulted in it having a poor safety record UNTIL they improved the training program to be far more intense than typical piston aircraft.


The CJ3 wins this EVERY TIME.

It is a known quantity, well established flight training programs, flaws and issues known, gotchas exposed, techniques refined, and a very well defined standard of acceptable pilot performance. So the pilot who graduates the CJ course can fly the airplane, the industry knows how to do that.

Meanwhile, the SF50 pilot is flying an untested airplane, untested training program, with only a single engine, at night, and over mountains if transcon. Further, the range limitations of the SF50 mean he has to perform twice the takeoffs, approaches, and landings to fly across the country.

The CJ3 will also fly a 100 knots faster (and maybe it is out of the brutal winter headwinds in the 20s, too), and likely avoid any icing at cruise altitudes. The SF50 will take TWICE as long in net time to get to VNY, and probably use about the same fuel. Due to the extra engine hours, the engine program costs will be similar, too! The transcon family flight really exposes the severe limitations of the SF50 in range, payload, and speed.

Put a CJ3 or an SF50 on the ramp in TEB, at night, in January, and ask any sane person which one you want to use to fly to VNY, it is NO CONTEST, take the CJ3. This is irregardless of the pilot hours.

The SF50 does not make a bad pilot safe nor compensate for lack of experience and judgment that is required to fly a turbine.

Mike C.

He doth blaspheme against the religion of Cirrus. Thou shalt deploy thy chute in thine emergency, so sayeth the Book of Klap.

When an SR pilot did a dead stick in Florida, he was flogged for it by the Cirrus orthodoxy.

Mike C.