SF50 seems like quite a success...

https://aviationweek.com/business-aviat ... ors-survey

I heard the FAA would never certify the SF50 and it was bankrupting the company.

https://flightaware.com/live/flight/N507SA

This one flies a LOT. Sweet Aviation. Anyone heard of sweetwater the music instrument place? They have impressive operation in Ft Wayne. We've talked about them here before when they raised their CFI rates to near 70 something an hour. And they have robust business. Cirrus and Diamond airplanes. I know of coworkers who are lower middle class who stretch and stretch to pay for their kids flight training there, and you know what they seem to be getting good value. The people and employees are professional and like so many things you get what you pay for. Excellent instructors, nice planes, great community they have a great draw.

I'm pals with the chief pilot who flew the acceptance/demonstration flight to get it on their charter certificate, 2 FAA guys over 2 days of flying. Since then they've flown half a dozen charters with it.

Clearly not a flop. I bet they get a newer one theirs was pretty early SN 25, they're pretty reliable cirrus customers.

https://www.fwbusiness.com/fwbusiness/article_f877d833-662b-5232-a4fb-f9725dc1f1c9.html
Also note that this article doesn't screw up too much...pretty good coverage for once

I will be interested to see how they hold up after 10-15 years of service. I have to wonder if heat on the tail will ever become an issue. Ones I’ve seen in the shop have a lot of exhaust gas and discolored paint past the engine on their tail surface including on the v tail boots.

Seems overall to be a nice airplane.

Here are the key phrases:

More than three-quarters of Vision Jet buyers upgraded from Cirrus piston single-engine aircraft.

Some Vision Jet operators are trading up from their first-generation aircraft to second-generation models. The block point change was made at s.n. 94, starting in early 2019. The newer aircraft cruise 3,000 ft. higher, have better cabin pressurization, slightly more tanks-full payload and fly about 100 nm farther.

Thats exactly the market the company was going for.

Fools

Not following

Yes, I'm familiar with Sweetwater Music. I've bought gear from them. They're pretty resourceful. I didn't realize they were also in aviation. What a coincidence.

I've flown it, very nice plane. I could see selecting it over a PA46, which is really where it fits in the scheme of stuff you can spend $2M on.

If I only had the budget and a reason to have one.

It's not for "fun" flying. It does though, fit into a certain niche of travel missions that make sense.

They stated that this was their target market, and it looks to be a winning strategy. The fact that owners are upgrading to the next model is again a reflection of their existing business model in the piston market.

'Some people' are convinced that this is somehow a bad idea, my statement of 'fools' followed by a laughing emoticon was an attempt of poking fun at that (mistaken) belief.





It'll be interesting to see how big the upgrade market inside of the existing Cirrus customer base is and how long they can draw from that to build new airframes.

It'll also be interesting whether this has any effect on Piper PA46 orders. By upgrading their product, they have a differentiating feature that may leave them unaffected. Probably too early to tell.

What's a Piper PA46?

Yes, I'm familiar with Sweetwater Music. I've bought gear from them. They're pretty resourceful. I didn't realize they were also in aviation. What a coincidence.

I know of one customer that made Cirrus buy it back. Couldn’t keep it flying. In five months of service it only flew 17 hours. I observed the mobile rescue truck pull the engine out of it.

Cirrus and COPA won’t let anything but the Koolaid stories on the internet.
I still stand by my original statement that is a plastic disaster !