No question we all love our planes, and most of us are very passionate about them. Part of the reason I love mine is because I get to tinker with it and enjoy the process of incrementally improving it. I suspect that these reasons may make me a dying breed unfortunately [/quote]

+1

Hey I resemble that remark
I fly a corporate PC12, an SR22, and an R66.

You're right my job is easy and without an XM radio it would be very boring. But I tell guys like you all the time we don't get paid to fly. We get paid to live with a cell phone. We get paid to miss birthdays and anniversaries. Many could not do what we do..

Good morning Jason, my comments may have been flippant, but not inaccurate. From what little I've read, I think the Corvallis is a better aircraft, at least faster with a higher probability of long term corporate survival, but of course without the chute.

I may have been put off by the " . . . chicks dig it . . ." just because something as complex as the purchase and use of an aircraft of this type and financial outlay would be based on a more measurable criteria.

Some of us don't have the ability to write off he aircraft through tax law so we must base our evaluations on more concrete data than the coolness factor.

Obviously pilots of my mindset are decreasing in number, but we won't consent to go quietly.

Also as to why Beech is so clueless . . . ?

Actually, I wished I had a parachute on board yesterday morning as I was flying east out of the Knoxville fly-in fun, skirting around a little line of yellow rain but flying along the spine of those high mountains...and it was all IMC below me... And, I don't think I'm uninformed.


Let me be clear, I was NOT the one who bought that ticket in Florida and won that lottery.

However, if I had, I would not buy either of these two choices.

TBM ? Maybe...

Beech does hear us. I posted in the previous page that a G36 was a corporate flight department backup for their jets, unlike the approach Cirrus took. Therefore, no need for TN, FIKI, user friendly keypads, etc. with those short missions. Now Beech is free of the jets, I think we can expect a complete package shortly. If I don't buy a turbine in the next year or two, my next piston will be loaded at the factory. If Beech doesn't provide then complete package by then, my next airplane could well be a Cirrus!

Beech does hear us. I posted in the previous page that a G36 was a corporate flight department backup for their jets, unlike the approach Cirrus took. Therefore, no need for TN, FIKI, user friendly keypads, etc. with those short missions. Now Beech is free of the jets, I think we can expect a complete package shortly. If I don't buy a turbine in the next year or two, my next piston will be loaded at the factory. If Beech doesn't provide then complete package by then, my next piston could well be a Cirrus!

Beech does hear us. I posted in the previous page that a G36 was a corporate flight department backup for their jets, unlike the approach Cirrus took. Therefore, no need for TN, FIKI, user friendly keypads, etc. with those short missions. Now Beech is free of the jets, I think we can expect a complete package shortly. If I don't buy a turbine in the next year or two, my next piston will be loaded at the factory. If Beech doesn't provide then complete package by then, my next piston could well be a Cirrus!

Sound like you need a TBM Rick, its loaded from the factory also.

And you get G1000 etc. It's truly the ultimate package from the factory.

When I sold the G36 and between when the G58 arrived I hired a cirrus 22 and it went well. Nice and roomy and comfortable BUT when things got bumpy and turned to snot like it sometimes can in Aussie I wished I was in a Beech.

Or a helicopter..... So I could just land.

Probably true, but at the macro level I don't think they do the opposite of what makes sense. In other words, charging more for a retract makes sense. Charging less for an IR pilot makes sense, statistically speaking.

And really the whole insurance thing was not even what I was disputing. You seem to be under the impression that higher time pilots and instrument rated pilots are more likely to get in an accident than lower time and/or VFR-only pilots. I believe you got this impression by grossly misinterpreting some statistics you read, and I was trying to point that out before you spread misinformation all over the interwebs!

Here's a quote from the Cirrus article you linked: "Unfortunately, we do not know the proportion of Cirrus pilots with high or low experience. Therefore, we cannot determine if pilots with low experience have a greater rate of accidents."

See, the author of that article gets it. Unfortunately, that one line was the only thing to prevent people from falling into the huge trap they laid with those graphs showing that more Cirri crashed with high time pilots on board than low time pilots...

Take it from the guy who has loaded over 70k accident reports into a postgres database to run queries on them (me). Per flight hour, higher time pilots are safer. A lot safer.


Actually, logic would not have that at all. It's quite possible that all those VFR-only pilots never even leave the ground. That would make it pretty hard for them to get in an accident! Now, we know they do, in fact, fly... but my point is they might fly far, far less than their IR counterparts. If all you have is the total number of VFR and IFR qualified pilots, you cannot speculate as to which group should get in more accidents, because you don't know which group flies more.


Again, I realize calculating aviation insurance premiums is more of an art than a science, but I'm pretty sure they get the big ticket items like "IR pilots are safer" right.

Back to the topic of who is doing better at sales. I manage and fly 3 SR22's a B100 and a PA31. My last non-pilot owner that wanted a plane had money and wanted something shiny and new. He looked at turn key navajo's for $900,000 and finally decided on an 07 SR22. It was only a couple of years old and went fast and was comfortable. He had flown in barons and many different charter aircraft before and liked the cirrus over all of them, except for the cabin class twins. He likes to fly over water and I even tried to steer him towards a baron and he was happy with the parachute and a raft.

My point is that people that spend $300,000+ do not want a 30 year old airframe or design. This is one reason why cirrus is selling very well and they hold their value pretty well for a new design. My 07 G3's have only lost about 15% if their value from new and I could sell them in a week if I wanted to for pretty much what we paid for them.

On the subject of bad saleman, I've heard of a recent large contract loss of cessna to piper simply based on people not returning phone calls. Millions of dollars gone because people don't call back.

Game, Set, Match....

Stewart is planning a fly-in in September and looking for Sponsors and GA Companies to fly-in.
So I reached out to the Cirrus rep I know on Saturday evening, he replied this morning with the Texas rep and said they would be at-least interested in discussing.
(Contact info PM sent to Stewart)

I will be sending to a few other sales guys I know this evening to see the response time.

Not bad....

Tim

I've been saying this for years......

Fire everyone at Beech except for the 5 or so guys that build the airframes. Start an aftermarket company (like TAT) that buys the airframes and do a custom buildout for buyers. Add engine, TN, TKS, whatever avionics package the buyer wants, paint and interior. Done.