I can't speak for Warren, but in aviation "huge success" looks to me a lot like recovering your development costs for the aircraft. I bet Airbus would agree.

We'll never actually know if Cirrus achieves this with the SF50. From the outside view we do have the SF50 has a better chance than most aircraft.

Let's look at N204HS.

FA has 37.2 hours of flights, 26 legs.

82% of the time is spent on legs that exceed 1 hour.

55% of the time is spent on legs that exceed 2 hours.

36% of the time is spent on legs that exceed 3 hours.

The plane can't do 4 hours reliably but some stops look like fuel stops, like the KTYS KHUT KDVT trip, and the KLAS KDTN KMYR trip. If you take out the fuel stops on those flights, then:

34% of the time is spent on trips exceeding 5 hours.

You get a false impression of mission mix if you average by trips instead of by hours.

Mike C.

Nah, success is the company stays in business, the plane stays supported and updated for some period of time. You can argue if the period is one decade, two decades or five; you can also debate the meaning of "supported".

Tim

Haters gonna hate
Cirrus gonna fly
Ol Mike C gonna poke em in da eye
We all just laugh, cause dat what we do
Meanwhile this thread heads for page 1,002

Whatever plane you have is too big by that standard as you can always define your longest trip as an "outlier".

Mike C.

Now that is funny

Nah, success is the company stays in business, the plane stays supported and updated for some period of time. You can argue if the period is one decade, two decades or five; you can also debate the meaning of "supported".

Tim

This thread reminds me of FB

My daughter calls BT 'facebook for pilots'.

This thread is closer to the youtube comments section.

In aviation a "huge success" means bare survival with only one or maybe two bankruptcies.

Whatever plane you have is too big by that standard as you can always define your longest trip as an "outlier".

Mike C.

So I had an hour to kill. I log electronically which makes it convenient to mine for data sometimes. A few graphs that may or may not be relevant.

Including all Flights:

Graphed by Leg Time


Graphed by Leg Length


Removing training flights but across all types I have flown:

Graphed by Leg Time


Graphed by Leg Length


Editing down to just flights in the Baron

Graphed by Leg Time


Graphed by Leg Length


To me this shows that once you remove training flights my leg time was pretty consistent across types. The 50% point on both the all types and baron graphs is 2.4 hours. The 20% point on both graphs is right around 1 hour (.96-all types 1.1-baron). The 80% point on both graphs is right around 3 hours (3.1-all types 2.8-baron). so the time element is consistant. This is what I would expect.

On the distance side the baron consistantly beats the all types. The 50% point for all types is only 283 where it is 442 for the baron. The 20% point for all types is 165 miles where it is 221 for the baron. The 80% point for all types is 450 where as it is 500 for the baron.

Basically that all scales by how much faster the baron is than the "average" plane I've flown. Maybe Mike is right, the only thing that matters is speed. Once it can do more than 4 hours so it covers the 95% point for leg time then my utilization distance scales pretty much linearly with how fast the plane goes. I wish I had enough data to do an analysis across a whole pilot population like this since obviously with just me its anecdotal. Who knows I may not be anywhere near typical of how most people use their planes.


TLDR: Faster is better

Why do you think a PC-12 or TBM cost double to operate than an SF50?

Fuel the same or less for the turboprops (particularly if they fly lower out of harsh headwinds).

Engine reserve is about the same. Williams at ~$170/hour for the SF50, that's $600K for a PT6A-6x over a 3500 hour TBO cycle, which should cover it.

Other things like avionics, tires, brakes, windows, etc, don't seem materially cheaper on the SF50.

So why do the turboprops cost twice as much to operate?

Mike C.

Why do you think a PC-12 or TBM cost double to operate than an SF50?

Fuel the same or less for the turboprops (particularly if they fly lower out of harsh headwinds).

Engine reserve is about the same. Williams at ~$170/hour for the SF50, that's $600K for a PT6A-6x over a 3500 hour TBO cycle, which should cover it.

Other things like avionics, tires, brakes, windows, etc, don't seem materially cheaper on the SF50.

So why do the turboprops cost twice as much to operate?

Mike C.