The seaplane rating is the easiest rating to get. I did mine with about two hours of training before the checkride.

For whatever reason, owner-pilots often don’t want to go down the multiengine road. It is a right of passage for young pilots on the career path, but less so for personal flyers. Some do the multi, including me.

I think a lot of people who get the SF50 just don’t need anymore airplane than that. They aren’t looking to get flown around either while riding in back. Just want the coolest thing they can personally fly and comfortably travel on shorter trips that don’t merit the extra expense and bother of a twin jet.

The seaplane rating is the easiest rating to get. I did mine with about two hours of training before the checkride.

When I did my multi 20 years ago, it was because the feature set of multi engine airplanes was where I wanted to head - pressurized traveling machine. Now I think SETP (+SF50) make that less of a distinction.

I will never have the budget for a Cirrus jet, but I am happy that someone do. The tears of haters are like a sweet nectar, while the wailing of "muh turboproooooop" is like a heavenly music to me.

The multi question is real. I keep hearing about people who were fully qualified packing it in. I met someone who knew the guy in C310 in Santa Fe, he reported that the pilot was well regarded. I'd take the chute.

Not in a twin jet. The VMC roll over accident doesn't exist for jets.

Like Cirrus, you are incorrectly applying piston ideas to jets.

Mike C.

Crash talk begs to differ, it's littered with jets crashing...and depressurizing...and skidding off the runway...No plane is immune.

Chip-

Stupid is as stupid does

None of which was due to having two engines.

What you don't hear about is a jet crashing because an engine failed, for which the SF50 has already had at least one such accident.

The point is that avoiding a twin jet because piston twins have engine failure accidents is misguided.

Mike C.

Mike, how can you possibly compare eclipse to Vision? Vision is a larger airplane by far. There is zero comparison in cabin. Put two engines on that cabin and it would use more gas or be slower.

same thing on mustang. Or even your V. No comparison to Vision cabin. My shoulders run the sidewall of a V sitting in any seat. There are 5 in a Vision jet where that doesn’t happen. That matters!

The eclipse and mustang also hemorrhage fuel down low. Try planning a trip into LA or NY basin in one. Honda jet suffers similar range issue. Vision jet not as much. Eclipse has awful range in the low 30s, and if memory serves, doesn’t do 370kts at fl410. It slows down if you go high enough to go far.

The cabin on your plane is awful relative to Piaggio, you burn exactly twice the fuel while going about 10% faster. Does that make the V a terrible product and the Avanti a great one?

The Vision does exactly what that segment of market wanted. Even w Garmin, the Eclipse is like riding in a Saratoga size wise. All the engineering specs in the world can’t fix legroom.

You are delusional if you think your citation is just as easy to fly. It’s not even close. I could not fly for 15 years and feel comfortable self checking myself out in a fadec controlled single jet. Pilots are killing themselves at a rate of a few per year in citations. Is that bc it’s less complex?

Pretending that the much smaller Eclipse is superior in every way but panel ignores physics.

Seems like when I looked at the Eclipse and SF50 numbers, altitude for altitude they burned about the same fuel and had about the same thrust. Eclipse just did it with 2 engines half the size of the SF50. If you could get the SF50 to 40,000 feet, would have some pretty good fuel specifics. They both gulp fuel down low. I like the Eclipse. The seats go back a long way for long legged people. If you pull 2 seats out, has a lot of room. Would be great with the Garmin avionics. Maybe one day if they start building again. I know a lot of people in SF50's. Seems what they like are the parachute, the cabin, ease of operation, and the modern technology. Performance and capability is not at the top of their desires, but the plane is quite capable when thinking about it from a piston mindset, where most are transitioning. I would not have guessed they got to 500 this fast, but they are still going strong.

I still find the irony that the biggest proponent for years on BT about the magic of 300kts trashed the performance of a plane that does exactly that.

300 knots is a nice speed. I can only get that in the descent . But the reality of travel time is that efficiency in getting packed, getting to the airport, flight planning, routing, ATC handling, range and need for fuel stops, can make more difference in travel time than 300 vs 400 knots. Heck, I can beat the 460 knot airlines almost anywhere in the US door to door when all the factors are added up.

Both are 6000 lbs jets aimed at owner operators.


That's a design decision by Cirrus to trade speed for comfort. They could make the same trade off for a twin.


No, it wouldn't. That's because the cabin would be flying through much thinner air with a lot less drag. The SF50 cabin would be faster at altitude, but perhaps not as fast as an Eclipse, but faster than it is now.


The Eclipse will use less fuel over any given profile than the SF50. It has less total thrust and less drag.


If Piaggio could support the Avanti the way Textron does, and not shaft its owners with ridiculous prices and inspection schedules, it could be a great airplane. It is still a turboprop versus a jet.


They could have gotten so much more if not for the religious decisions being made.


There is certainly nothing about having two engines that makes my plane difficult.

Have an engine failure at 200 AGL and then tell me which airplane is easier and safer.


I see some delusion there. There is a lot more to flying a jet than the pushing the power lever.


It is because they are flown a HUGE amount more.

You can't find one case where the fatal accident of a Citation would have been averted if the plane had one engine.


A twin jet is superior when you consider the physics. You can make the cabin bigger if you want, the twin still wins.

Mike C.

Because they built a plane that had the potential to go nearly 400 knots and arbitrarily limited it to 300 knots (and put it in more weather and icing) with stupid decisions.

They built a very compromised plane in a way that doesn't provide value.

Mike C.