If they ever get it to the point where you just push a button and it does the rest, they will sell a million of them.

And yes, us "real" pilots will complain what an awful idea it is.

My dad in his 20s voted "no" for AC. He grew up chopping cotton in the Texas summers and he should have known that's the dumbest idea you'll ever hear.

In my 20s I voted "no" to automatic transmissions. I thought they were girly and not a real car and how in the world are you going to push start one of these things when the battery goes dead? You're just begging to be left stranded somewhere.

My kids just roll their eyes.

It goes on and on.

Here's the deal.

My grandson is not going to say "no" to a vehicle that will take him and his friends 300kts with no more effort than what he spends programming his phone.

In the US alone, there are millions of households with a net worth >$10Million.

They never thought they wanted to be pilots... until now.

That's the market.

Cirrus doesn't care that my old fly buddies and I won't buy one because they're too "automated".

They're going to sell a million of these things.

Bingo

We have a winner!

And the incremental improvements begin...

SF50 Gen 2

[youtube]https://youtu.be/rqyQAIe-vCU[/youtube]




https://www.euroga.org/forums/aircraft/ ... ad?page=74


[youtube]https://youtu.be/WcaB4Yfkt5Q[/youtube]

Well that last video from Cirrus is one heck of a marketing tool

It's WOW!

I love the pull-down video screen in the back, the amazing interior, the tray tables, the ATs.

I wish...…..but there are a couple million reasons I won't have one...

Legitimate question: which personal jets have an interior class anywhere near the class of this plane?

And runner up for best airplane Ad..... I don’t care if a company has an old product or not, this Beech marketing is so sub par as to be down right embarrassing. Good thing for them, they don’t work for me.

[youtube]https://youtu.be/jtPmAGEAuIs[/youtube]

Cirrus really does know their market, and they really know how to sell. Cessna M2, TBM and Piper M500/M600 are potentially in trouble.

Tim

Good post. I've been saying the exact same thing around here for years.

The goal of private aviation is to get from point A to B with as little hassle as possible. If you're into "flying" go buy a tail dragger and have fun. These are 2 very different things. One has noting to do with the other. I'm in the "no hassles" camp myself.

Snore.....
It would be fascinating to sit in a meeting at Textron at the executive level as they show Cirrus ads to a focus group versus Textron ads.

Tim

Agreed.... That video is 100% awful.

Cirrus doesn't care that my old fly buddies and I won't buy one because they're too "automated".

They're going to sell a million of these things.

Engineering question.

Go back a few pages and look at the Globalhawk. They went with a single turbofan with effectively a V Tail. I am fairly sure that efficiency (loiter time) matters more than price, yet DoD went with a larger and much more complex control system to have the single engine.
Boeing and Airbus have gone from four engines down to two.

The point being; what aspect of turbofans has such a huge drag or efficiency cost that everyone wants larger and fewer engines? Are there any rules of thumb or is this all guesswork and proprietary knowledge?

The Eclipse climbs/performs much better on roughly the same thrust and weight; therefore the V/X tail of the SF50 and airflow inlet must have some significant penalties (which is the main point of comparison why the single engine turbofan does not make sense). Based on the point above, what aspect about this comparison is invalid?

Tim

I'll leave it to Mike C to provide the engineering details, but in a nutshell it's all about fuel burn.

Additional engines, even smaller ones, burn more than a single one in most cases. That requires additional fuel or you have shorter range. If you opt for more fuel you compromise useful load, unless you increase the thrust, which burns more fuel... There's also the added complexity and weight of duplicate mounting, controls, etc.

Doubt it? Just look at a Baron versus a Bonanza. The Baron is much more capable in a lot of areas but it costs you in fuel. Drop to an equivalent horsepower and you have a 150 hp Apache which is about the same speed and performance as a Cherokee Archer but still burns fuel like a Bonanza.

Adding engines provides redundancy, performance, or both at the expense of dollars per hour. Cirrus opted for the less expensive route because that's where their market is.