I can taste test 10 people on what I believe to be the best tasting product in the world. 5 will like it. 5 won't.

You can't compare a subjective thing like taste to something that can be tested with numbers. Taste is subjective. It can't be measured.

I'm open to another bad product roll out analogy but New Coke isn't it.

Nothing on the planet requires more testing than a new airplane. NOTHING. How can Cirrus be as wrong as you predict when measurable data is available?

Mike thinks the SR-22 and the parachute are a terrible idea, and statistically ridiculous from a logical engineer's perspective.

Cirrus sold 5,000 airplanes. Their salesmen credit the chute for their success.

Which one is right about the value of the chute?

This assumes an SR owner would be turned off by a twin engine Cirrus Jet. Cirrus is Cirrus. If Cirrus built a twin jet Cirrus owners would be just as happy.

There has to be something about this being a single that they've gone this far with it. I do not believe they are morons as Binnette and Ciholas contend. Cirrus has had plenty of time to get out of this.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but the Columbia 300 was certified before the Cirrus SR series in 1998. Cirrus did not "create" the plastic airplane market, it was one of a few competitors, of which they did become the most successful. Ubiquitous is debatable, high wing Cessnas out number them at least 6 to 1.

Also, MP3 players existed well before Apple's iPod. Apple did not create that market either. Their innovation was monopolistic music marketing through their iTunes store. The iPod itself was mundane, devoid of any meaningful technical achievement.

It is common to engage in revisionist history when a company takes over a market, painting them as some how inventing the market when all they did was steal it.


Let's hope they make flying cars next. That will allow many of you to argue we no one can know that such a product will fail, so it might succeed.

I've seen this movie before. We're near the end when the proponents start claiming their ignorance applies to everyone else.

Mike C.

There was no "Old Beetle" to be bought on the dealership floor when the "New Beetle" was introduced. Apples and Oranges comparison.

The level that you go to to try and degrade companies products, even when they are wildly successful, is kinda ridiculous. If the product and company makes millions of dollars, I dont think you saying that their product is inferior is valid. Don't be such a hater.

Ben - why do you have a Darth Vadar mask on?
Mike - we get it - Cirrus sucks.
Jason - we get it - you want to wait and see how cool or uncool it is.

I've never been so drawn to a thread which has exceeded its useful value to society. I can't stop watching. But come on.

Play the ball, not the player .

This assumes an SR owner would be turned off by a twin engine Cirrus Jet. Cirrus is Cirrus. If Cirrus built a twin jet Cirrus owners would be just as happy.

There has to be something about this being a single that they've gone this far with it. I do not believe they are morons as Binnette and Ciholas contend. Cirrus has had plenty of time to get out of this.

I have an original iPod. It was way better than everything else. It was the first to have the tiny hard disk -- "1000 songs in your pocket". It had a really great user interface (anchored by the scroll wheel) compared to the complete crap like the Rio that preceded it. And the integration with iTunes was very very good, in large part thanks to using firewire instead of slow USB 1.

All that said, iPod was a niche thing until they shipped iTunes for Windows and launched the music store.

OTOH, there's the Newton, a big engineering effort that totally and completely missed the mark.

I don't think anyone in the market for a jet cares if it's a VTail or not. I'd bet many don't even notice.

I bought a Bonanza over an SR22 in 2008. First plane, new pilot.

Yeah, but I suspect incentives aren't totally aligned between the investors and builders. The investors (first depositors, then the new ownership) are betting on a product vision which may or may not work. But for the engineers, the SF50 is an interesting, challenging, fun project! And there just aren't a lot of clean sheet airplane designs to work on in the world, let alone North Dakota. Having raised the necessary capital, I doubt R&D has much incentive to stop plugging away at it.

I am sure that is backwards.

They started with the idea to build a single engine jet. The only problem, where to put the engine? The V tail gave them the room to put it on top and not blast the tail.

Mike C.

Sorry, not buying this either.

The most basic fundamentals of building a jet are being ignored (according to Mike Ciholas) and billions of $$ spent because it's a challenging and fun project?

Not true.

3 years before iPod first appeared, there were at least 4 portable digital music players with hard disks.

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

There was nothing innovative abut the iPod itself. It stored compressed digital audio, it played it back. That was so non innovative that Apple produced prior art for it that was over 20 years old during a lawsuit.

You Apple fan boys really like revisionist history. Apple does not innovate very much. What they do is execute old ideas elegantly and expensively. Those are two very different things.

What was innovative was iTunes, specifically the monopolistic practice of denying any other way to purchase music for your iPod except through the store. Apple essentially owned your ears when you bought an iPod. The music industry didn't realize what was about to happen or they would have prevented it (and thankfully the video industry didn't go down the same path, one of the reasons that Apple has had a hard time breaking into the video market).

Mike C.