This was exactly the conclusion I came to.

But to be fair, you are HEAVILY involved in the maintenance and operation of your plane (as am I). If something breaks you will do a lot of troubleshooting yourself vs throwing parts at a problem. Then once you've identified a part you will scour the country (or in my case I just call Tarver ) looking for a yellow tag or overhaul options. I do the same and also like to help my mechanic do the work which speeds up the process and saves me money.

This dramatically lowers one's cost of ownership and IMO is not indicative of typical owners. I think your target SF50 owner wants to treat the plane like a leased car. They want a fixed ownership price every year and if anything breaks they want to call up the dealer and tell them to fix it. They do not want to be pouring over Maintenance/Operations Manuals and Parts Catalogs to figure out why their pressurization system is acting weird (recalling your squat switch troubleshooting a while back). They realize they are leaving money on the table but they would rather spend money than time.

Prior to my 501SP I was a member of a Cirrus Club. It was a wonderful experience. They had a bench of CFIs and a Redbird to uplevel skills and keep you current. I came to them after not flying for 20 years. They knocked the rust off and then took my through my Instrument rating. It was really nice to just show up and fly when you wanted. If anything was awry when you landed, you just noted it on the time sheet and it was fixed. My wife still misses aspects of the SR22 and I'm guessing that as someone mentioned above, the SF50 is likely an easier sell to a non-pilot spouse than other options.

One thing I would say to anyone buying a turbine from the piston world, is that your mission changes. Saw that with the Meridian. It did everything it was advertised to do as advertised. Great plane. But once you realize that weather that kept you on the ground in a piston no longer grounded you, and with speed and the comfort that reduced noise vibration and pressurization affords, cross country travel becomes so much easier. Then you want to enjoy those trips with more people as the trip is now fast, reliable and comfortable. Then range, payload, and somewhat speed become front and center issues. My mission expanded in the Meridian, but I quickly outgrew the range and payload. The M600 expanded it further. Single day non-stop trips to alaska and mexico became effortless. Even crossing the atlantic was almost stress free. Alternates and headwinds no longer an issue. Greenland to Canada with 100 knots on the nose needing a real alternate, not even a concern. 6 adult sized people to the Rose bowl this oast week with enough fuel to fly there and back from Utah, even though I planned fuel in LA as CAA rate beat my home drome. So some will outgrow the SF50 as they fully realize how a turbine opens up the world. Some it will be the destination plane. But that is the beauty of GA.

Well said. We were enjoying our SR22 experience but would find ourselves sitting on the beach and wishing that we could have brought another family along. So when I went looking to buy I knew I needed to be able to carry 4 adults and 4 kids. Thanks to BT I went from looking at 421s to 441s/MU-2s to 501s. A friend who flies a lot was really pushing a PC-12 and it would have done the mission but it was out of my price range.

All that so say, as your capabilities expand, your mission will as well.

Most new jet models have scalability built into the airframe; higher gross weight, more thrust.

Does the Williams engine have higher thrust models of the same architecture that would fit the SF50? More wing bays for more fuel? Tip tanks could be added.

Personally, the range would work for me, but I'd like more cabin load; 4 adults with baggage. I could do without some of the options, like the auto-land if they were separable and lowered the price. No anti-skid is a bit of a disappointment, but then the landing speeds and weight are pretty low.

Thanks to Mark for the great real world owner report.

They're already working on it. For the G2 SF50, Cirrus worked w/ Williams on different settings for the FADEC (and possibly internal component changes?) to allow more power for a short period in order to improve hot/high takeoff performance.

I think one of their goals was to get the plane to fit in a standard hangar. The SF50 has the same wingspan as the SR22 which makes it a drop-in upgrade for an SR22 owner - no need to change hangars. Adding more fuel/tip tanks would defeat that goal. Plus that is a downside of composites vs metal. Much more difficult to modify after it is cured.

I believe that choice to limit wingspan also forced the low payload capacity. My plane has another 9 feet of wingspan and 83 sq ft of wing area. That difference supports a lot of payload.

Finally, anti-skid? My plane is twice as heavy on landing as an SF50 and I have had no need for anti-skid. Of course I live in the South so rarely have to deal with contaminated runways but we do fly to New Mexico to ski often and I have taken off and landed w/ patchy snow a number of times. In my view it's no different than a car with or without ABS. If you know what you're doing you can brake just as well with manual brakes as you can with ABS.

I think you can stop faster with manual brakes than anti skid if you know what you are doing. I have been in a car where the antilocks will chatter with essentially no braking and the only way to stop is to defeat them by jacking the brakes and getting the tires to slide then you can back off while the computer is confused and get some actual braking.

Guessing you haven't run against the M3 guys with their Teves Mk60 ABS (or adapted cars). It is embarrassing to watch them slither so deep and make it stick.

Now that we have real numbers for a *brand new* SF50, how do they compare to the "Real Jets™"?

Comparison to *BRAND NEW*:

1. Textron Citation M2:

3. Phenom 100:


One thing about owning a "used" airplane, is that the owner shoulders a bigger risk. With any luck, nothing goes wrong. On average, one could expect the typical number of unexpected expenses, but some unlucky ones will draw the "oh cr@p" card on something during routine maintenance, or unexpected AOG event, etc.

The new buyer, presumably, manages the unexpected risks via warranty and program coverage.

Not that it is cheaper on average (or else, the plan would cost more) but it keeps you out of rolling snake-eyes in a bad, bad way.

And that's part of my calculus on owning a plane. I could afford more airplane, maybe a turbine, if nothing bad happens. But if I had to buy a piston engine, I could. If I had major turbine problems, not sure I could. Not that it happens a lot, but it is possible.

Original question - why is it so slow?

1. If your largest prospect pool are your loyal owners taking them up in capability in small steps while providing them a great experience trumps all out speed.
2. Car manufacturers top to bottom don’t release the fastest, most sought after version of their product year one….product life cycles are important.

Cirrus has kept its customers moving up safe, especially when you take into account the number of non pro pilot flown aircraft.

As many have stated - most of us can’t play on this playground, but that’s what America is about - dreaming.

Peace,
Don

I'm just the opposite, I'd like more range but the payload w/ full fuel is perfect. Ninety-five percent of our flights are just the two of us plus luggage, and the more people we have aboard the sooner somebody will need a potty stop so the legs get shorter anyway. Any plane with full-fuel payload of more than 4-500 lbs. could use bigger fuel tanks.

I'm just the opposite, I'd like more range but the payload w/ full fuel is perfect. Ninety-five percent of our flights are just the two of us plus luggage, and the more people we have aboard the sooner somebody will need a potty stop so the legs get shorter anyway. Any plane with full-fuel payload of more than 4-500 lbs. could use bigger fuel tanks.

Thanks Mark, that would work good for me. I and most of the people I fly with don't like anymore than about 2+30 in a plane without a lav, and one hour reserve is what my flight planning requires.

What would be the fuel burn for that mission.

Andrew