Yeah I've been meaning to bring that up. Was it lost on every body that he dated a Honda Jet model and now he is posing in front of a Honda Jet. Maybe moonlighting?

The parts that aren't evil need a life-support-system which is often, unfortunately, evil.

In 2006, my wife and I almost made the terrible mistake of buying a brand new Cirrus. The truth is we were going to lose about $200K in depreciation on a new Cirrus in the first two years we owned it. I figured if this was the case, why in the world would I not use a new plane price to build what I affectionally call our NUSED 1979 V35B Bonanza? And that's exactly what we did... new EVERYTHING (wiring, switches, gauges, CB's, etc.) including the Atlantic Aero IO-550R tuned induction engine and TKS deice. So what did I get for my money? More speed (184 knots), more useful load, double the deice capability with the TKS system, better climb, more baggage capacity, shorter takeoff roll, shorter landing roll, greater reliability and dispatch availability, lower cost of operation, dramatically lower insurance costs... all in a safer (yes SAFER... see attached chart with numbers weight averaged based on active fleet size) airplane that has stood the test of time. Last but not least, the only airplane I have ever flown that could ever come close to the beautiful handling quality of a Bonanza would be a Bellanca Super Viking.

Talk to any shop that services both the Cirrus and the Bonanza and find one that will tell you the Cirrus is a better airplane. It is not. It is a wonderful beautiful and well thought out airplane but it is definitely not a Bonanza. If you fly a Bonanza 100 hours or 400 hours between annuals, the cost of maintenance remains the same... not so with the Cirrus. Then there's the $1,000 per year amortization on the chute which has done more to save potential buyers than it ever did to save the airplane itself... brilliant marketing on the part of CD by the way.

Look at the demographics of the typical Cirrus buyer, you will see a clear trend of a new / low time pilot who falls in love with all the things he's been told he "needs" but really doesn't understand why. I recently sold a late model Cirrus to a client of mine that had to have the dual AHRS system. When I asked him why, he said "Well what if the primary system goes out?" I gently explained that's what the the AI, A/S and Alt instruments were for to which he replied... "I could never fly the plane on just those instruments."

Over the 42 years I have been flying, the 36 years I have been selling airplanes and the 70 plus different airplanes I've owned and operated from a TriPacer to a Citation, in my humble opinion the Bonanza, Baron and King Air series of aircraft represent the finest quality airplanes money can buy. Sadly Beech has not done a good job keeping up with the times, technology nor the consumer but they still manufacture arguably the best built, most reliable, and sweetest flying airplanes ever made. They got it right way back in 1947. I make no apologies for my biased opinion... I love the Bonanza in every form.

Piper had enough money to waste it on the piper-jet. The budget to develop some window molding on the Hawker 4000 would have covered what it would have taken to upgrade the G36 engine.

Randy,

You'll get no argument from most everyone here on the above statement. A Cirrus is not in my future but neither is a new G36. The issue is whether Beech can compete with Cirrus in the sale of new airplanes.

If you like the way your old Revell models went together and stayed together you'll enjoy a Cirrus. If one of your models fell a couple of feet it cracked. So will a Cirrus. If you left your model in the hot sun it deteriorated pretty quickly. So will a Cirrus. They are packed with technology and wring a lot of performance out of a fixed gear design. But they are NOT particularly well built nor much fun to fly if that's important to you. They are good enough airplanes for a while. But they are not built to last. Ask a mechanic who works on them what parts need replacing and how often.
That said, Cirrus has done more to pump life into GA in the last decade or so than any other builder of certified airplanes and they are to be congratulated, not dissed, for their success. I still don't want one.
Robin

Robin,
Much of your opinion here just isn't correct.

Rick... They are lost in Wichita. They just don't get it at all. The mere fact that you can spend $100K upgrading a brand new airplane is pathetic. They can produce all the "feel good" videos they want but the G36 is a tired airplane in its present form in my opinion. There are so many cool things that could be done to make it fantastic. Look what BMW Designworks did for the Phenom 100/300... talk about style. I have to hand it to Scott Erickson and his team at D'Shannon. They definitely get it and are working on some very exciting products for the plane but that doesn't help it compete.

I wish I were in charge of the piston line of airplanes at Beech which, by the way, accounted for only $30MM of $891MM total sales of propeller driven aircraft back in 2009 or 2010... about 3%. I would spin it off and give the Bonanza the attention it so rightly deserves, give it the best warranty in its class, and let the consumer tell me what they wanted to buy and not the other way around. They are just old and stodgy over there and their product, the way it is marketed, and the way it is sold confirms that. The airplane and the consumer deserve so much more than that...

Don't really agree withis statement.
I rebuilt one a couple of years ago after it had at least 3 prop strikes in 2 ugly landings following PIO. Somewhere in the first 2 strikes the nose gear broke, the engine mount broke and somewhere after between the first two strikes the go aound, the impossible turn RTB and the final strike the mains splintered.

I replaced everything firewall forward and everything on both mains to include struts. I could find no damage to firewall, wings or fuselage after all that abuse.
Not sure that a metal plane could have handled all that beating on the runway which this plane took and be able to fly 6 months later.
After I returned to service it went back to the Factory and they could not find any structural damage either.

Note: Turn time would have been quicker but I had to wait on owner to make decision about engine work.

Vote to ban!

How can you say such horrible things about Beech?

Kidding.


If I said that I'd be lynched.

There are over 650 posts in less than a week about Cirrae on a Beech website. What's up with that?

That, my friend, is passion...

Actually, these posts are about wishing and hoping that Beech can somehow get their act together, offer a great piston airplane or two, and survive.....maybe even be successful.

[youtube]http://youtu.be/NzlG28B-R8Y[/youtube]