Three of the buyers were women pilots....one of whom owned and flew her own Citation. I guess she's just stupid?

I think the TTx is more of a pilots plane. A lot of truth here. The Cirrus has a lot of blemishes. The seats are hard, the yoke and rudder feel of the Cirrus makes hand flying less fun. Can still do it, but rudder aileron interconnects on the old ones, and those spring cartridges on all of them that make the controls feel heavy even sitting on the ground. Not stick and rudder pilot material. The 22 does fly nice on AP, and that is what it is meant to do. I went Cirrus when they got FIKI, the 400 at the time didn't have FIKI. The lifetime safety of the 400/TTx is actually better than the Cirrus with CAPS, Textron could have marketed that, like Diamond has. I used to joke that the marketing department at Cessna, Piper and Diamond was the same guy, but he had a full time job somewhere else. Still kind of holds true.

So that is where Cirrus blew up Textron. By marketing the Cirrus life. They do that very well. A fun culture, great salespeople, great marketing, frequent innovation, making last years airplane, just a little less desirable than the next iteration. There is also the owners group COPA which is a very robust owners group, that adds not only safety, but a culture much like Beechtalk. There is just not much there on the Cessna side. Even when I looked seriously at getting a Citation, CJP is..... Apologies to the very good people there BOOOOOORRRRING. I have not met a Cessna sales person yet that actually flies a citation. Is that weird? They schedule a demo pilot

Agreed about CJP. Member there for 7 years when I had my Mustang. They tended to be a bit stuffy to engage for the most part. Some weren’t of course. Just an observation. I won’t bore you with Trxtrons treatment of me when attempting a M2 purchase… suffice to say they are not marketing experts by any stretch of the imagination, downright stupid frankly. But that doesn’t denigrate the actual product which is for the most part excellent.

As to support ? Textron still supports the 210… with parts …. Long out if production, to say that worries about support would prevent sales of the TTX is a red herring. Service and support of my TTX through Van Bortel has been stellar so that’s BS too.

It came down to the chute and appealing to new pilots and their non flying spouses period, case closed. Never mind the TTX was statistically safer, stronger, better looking and faster!

Mark, with all due respect- have you been a seller of a TTx yet? Perhaps she wanted the liquidity of a well sorted out cirrus- this is a largely overlooked aspect

There was also this little thing called a financial collapse that occurred at the same time Textron was trying to improve / sell the TTx.

The demand was there, especially early on and side by side the 400 / TTx will outsell the Cirrus. Sure, some will buy just because of the chute, but Lancair and then Textron didn’t need every Cirrus buyer… one third of them would have made for a nice fleet.

The battle was lost back in 2005 - 2007 when Lancair couldn’t produce enough airplanes and Cirrus did. In the 1990’s I was in new home sales, I opened a new community, I sold 20 homes on the hood of my car before the other builders ever showed up. My sales pitch from that point forward was “just look at how many homes we have sold and how many our competitors have sold, the market has spoken”

That’s what Cirrus did.

Better funded, more innovative, lesser product but they got out in front and leveraged it.

People make buying decisions based on all kinds of reasons and feelings.

It's not all, "brand x is better than brand y". Sometimes, it boils down to the color scheme, or how friendly the sales team was, or sometimes how the folklore set in.

Given the vigor of folklore presented, if that's the sales presentation those buyer's got, I'm sure they ran for the hills back in the day wherever that presentation was made.

I can say, from my personal experience, a used 2007 Columbia 400 is still the one I'd choose over a factory new 2020 SR22T. Not that I'd turn down the latter and I'm not knocking the 22 at all. Just between the two, I'm happy with what I got.

Cirrus did a great job of setting up the training and delivery process. Knoxville in October couldn't be prettier either. Seeing all the jets being delivered that week and the full motion SIM in action with people earning their SF50 type rating was impressive. Hat's off to Cirrus for acting like they want the business.

Columbia switched to G1000 in 2006, a few years ahead of Cirrus, who stayed on Avidyne Entegra for quite a while. There were issues in the first years of the G1000 too (for Columbia and others), so plenty of buyers in the day may have steered clear on that alone.

There was a bit of horse-puckies being spread about the Columbia, which I assure you, do not mesh with my experience of the aircraft, at all. Utter nonsense like fearing one's wrist being broken while doing a magneto check in gusty winds for example. I've certainly done it many times and have yet to suffer a fracture, or any inconvenience for that matter.

Once you get the hang of it, getting in/out of the 400 is quite easy, even for a big guy like me. I don't find the 22 any more or less challenging.

The 350/400/TTx have a really good safety record too.

Mark, with all due respect- have you been a seller of a TTx yet? Perhaps she wanted the liquidity of a well sorted out cirrus- this is a largely overlooked aspect

Mark, with all due respect- have you been a seller of a TTx yet? Perhaps she wanted the liquidity of a well sorted out cirrus- this is a largely overlooked aspect

I get about 2 letters a month from individuals wanting to buy my 400.

The man I bought my 400 from in 2014 would have bought a new TTX if it had FIKI at the time. I think the time out of market and the reintroduction without FIKI was a big problem. But I'm curious what the market might be if they started up again? VB would have the best idea there. Would a renewed TTX displace some Cirrus sales?

what is the insurance cost for $800k hull on a cirrus versus $800k hull on a TTx for a given pilot? 2%? 1.5%?

That would be a factor

what is the insurance cost for $800k hull on a cirrus versus $800k hull on a TTx for a given pilot? 2%? 1.5%?

That would be a factor

If I was to pick just ONE reason for Cirrus' success versus Textron, this is it.

Cirrus doesn’t have huge government defense contracts like Textron does. In other words, Cirrus actually needs to sell airplanes to stay in business. I’m not sure anyone in the C Suite at Textron would notice if they stopped selling 172s tomorrow.

Textron has slowly replaced all of their traditional sales people with folks that are more like deal facilitators. I miss the old guard sales guys, many were friends. A few are still there, but for the most part they have young, very professional sales folks that are responsible for territories. I hate this model. I hate it with Textron, I hate it with Embraer and I hate it with anyone else who does territories, but I especially hate it with Textron.

I want to talk to the guy who knows the CJ3+ the best... not the guy who is over the Southwest Territory. I understand that it makes it clean for them and travel is a consideration, but these are mobile assets in a mobile world where people often have homes and businesses in various parts of the country.

Jet Aviva does it right, if I want an M2, I call Denise. She knows the airplane and the market.

There's no reason Textron can't do the same, they should have an expert for every model instead of someone who has limited knowledge of all models but happens to be in Florida.

As far as someone who wants to sell airplanes, I don't need that. I need someone who knows the airplane and how to get a deal done.