I wouldn't buy anything if I had to appreciate it. Does that increase my tax bill?

I wouldn't buy anything if I had to appreciate it. Does that increase my tax bill?

I wouldn't buy anything if I had to appreciate it. Does that increase my tax bill?

That's a lie, of course. Chip is really terrible at speaking for others.

I said it would never be certified to FL410 where a jet makes sense. I very specifically said it WOULD be certified, specifically because Cirrus was crippling the design with a low max altitude. They recognized it wouldn't be certified to FL410 either, which was smart of them and quite unlike the other SEJ contenders. Remember all those?

What I said in 2014:

"There is nothing about the SF50 that can't ultimately be certified. This issue was never about that. It was about making a crippled jet using false piston thinking."

Cirrus made this a feature of the advertising, calling it the slowest, lowest jet. They managed, with a lot of hard work, to achieve that goal. It is a jet crippled by piston think.

As for sales, the brand loyalty Cirrus has from the SR series provided a ready market, but the SF50 is a gateway drug for a real jet which is why you see a fairly high turnover in a few years. Every real jet maker wants the SF50 ownership list so they can sell those folks a real jet when they tire of being in a noisy turboprop that just happens to lack the prop. Nobody flying a real jet switching to an SF50.

I can't afford an SF50, I fly a Citation V instead.

Mike C.

Ohh man, I forgot about the SF50 thread, that was years of peak Beechtalk. I miss a lot of the characters in that one. Wow it started in 2014, dang.

Chip-

You said it would never be certified above FL 250. Over and over and over again.
The SF50 service ceiling is FL 310.

You also bet JC it wouldn't be wildly successful.
It's been the best selling jet for a while now.

They nibbled on the edge of the rule that got them from FL250 to FL280, then pushed it to FL310 later. Unless there is a major rule change, they aren't making it a truly usable altitude in the high 30s, low 40s.

The rule:

"If certification for operation above 25,000 feet is requested, the airplane must be able to maintain a cabin pressure altitude of not more than 15,000 feet, in the event of any probable failure condition in the pressurization system. During decompression, the cabin altitude may not exceed 15,000 feet for more than 10 seconds and 25,000 feet for any duration."

They played games with the leak rate so they could do an emergency descent after engine failure fast enough to not get the cabin above 15,000 ft. Engine failure is a "probable failure" and is the only source of pressurization.

As the planes age, they tend to leak more, so it may not be the case a plane in the field can actually meet the rule as compared to a test airplane.

They are still stuck at turboprop altitudes with jet fuel flows, which was my main point. The SF50 offers no advantage over a single engine turboprop. It isn't faster, higher, longer range, quieter, or carrying more versus an SETP. being a jet carries negatives like type rating, runway performance, braking criticality, etc.

Mike C.

It would be nice if people would occasionally just admit that they were flat wrong. Instead of making a bunch of noise and bluster, creating a smoke screen to hide the fact that they got it wrong, again.

... you stopped telling people what I think or said and getting it wrong.

Mike C.

Chip,

Practically all interactions today, especially on SM, is about cheese and hustle.

Sure, there is a small percentage of interactions that are about genuine transfer of information or pure entertainment. But for the most part, SM (and in fact, a lot of life) has become so monetized (directly or indirectly) that practically everything is about protecting one's cheese, not getting your hustle busted, or similar astroturfing efforts.

In fact, if you look at most postings where people square off, and start from the standpoint of "Ok, whose hustle is getting busted and/or whose cheese is getting moved?", then a lot of what you see comes into focus.

It's not about being wrong or right, it's about throwing enough chaff into the conversation that no distinct answer pops out of the search engine. The goal is to deflect blame and throw question into the claims of your opponent.

A lot of economists said the internet would be the end of the economy as we knew it, because most of economics up until that point was based on "imperfect knowledge". That led to a lot of squish in the facts that allowed people to profit in the margins. Push on the universe, and it tends to push back, so this chaffing of "facts" is a counter to that, and we're almost back to where we were.

But back to your point. It's not about people accepting that they might be wrong. A better answer would be for people to be honest about what their interests are. "It's not that you're wrong, but I make a ton of coin doing what I do and that's what lets me live the life of Riley, and I'm automatically against whatever it is we're talking about that remotely threatens that."

Best,
Rich

... you stopped telling people what I think or said and getting it wrong.

Mike C.

I’ve owned an SF50, a TBM 960, an M2, and now a CJ3+. I can tell you that I enjoyed the SF50 more than the TBM. The SF50 has some intangibles that the turboprop singles don’t have:

1. A very roomy cabin and cockpit. Far and away the most comfortable cockpit of any plane I’ve owned.
2. An 8,000 ft cabin altitude, vs 10,000 in all of the turboprop singles.
3. The chute … I know the pros and cons, but it gives peace of mind to passengers, and might even save a qualified pilot in a few limited instances.
4. An easily reconfigurable cabin. All the rear seats can be added/removed in just seconds. I carried full size mountain bikes without removing the wheels. I can’t even do that in my 3+.
5. A quiet cabin. The SF50 has db readings that are effectively equivalent to the CJ’s. Readings on my iPhone are in the 76-77 range in the SF50, and both CJs. It was in the 87 range for the TBM. As a reference, I got readings of 82 in the front cabin seat of an RJ, and low 90’s in an SR22. I know the iPhone is hardly a high tech sound instrument, but these readings are all taken with the same phone, and the same app, so the readings are useful for relative comparison. The SF50 is a no headset airplane for passengers.

I fully agree that the SF50 is not as capable as turboprops in runway performance, range, or payload. However, if you have a mission less than 800nm, it is a very comfortable means of accomplishing such flights. New, it’s also about $1M less than any of the turboprop options.

I know none of these are as capable as your V, but I think there is a place for the SF50 in the food chain, and I think the sales figures show that fact.

You seem to have unique results from what I've heard.

For example:

https://philip.greenspun.com/blog/2022/ ... surements/

---

At FL200 (20,000′) and 301 knots true airspeed (219 indicated), cabin noise was 81-85 dBA depending on the position within the cabin and, especially, whether measured at the inboard or outboard ear. Closer to the fuselage, the sound was quite a bit louder.

At FL310 and 310 knots true airspeed (190 indicated), cabin noise was 80-82 dBA.

For reference, the Pilatus PC-12 turboprop measures 83-90 dBA inside. Small business jets and the Piaggio Avanti turboprop are in the 70s. The elites enjoy cabins in the high 60s dBA, e.g., in a Gulfstream.

---

Mr Investor wrote on BT:

"But unless comparing to a piston, I have never heard the Vision described as quiet."

Maybe your cell phone app isn't quite calibrated? If you changed phones between measurements, the number might not correlate, cell phone microphones are not precision instruments.


If it had two engines like the Eclipse it would have been far more useful, faster, longer range, less fuel, etc. The Eclipse, for all its business problems, had a basic design that was on the money. The SF50 had a solid business behind (once the Chinese bought them), but the design was contaminated by piston think, how a piston pilot might design a jet. The obvious example of this is it being a single engine airplane. The piston twin penalty does not exist for jets.

The SF50 is a $4M plane now. You are getting awfully close to a new M2 at that price and an M2 will run circles around the SF50 in speed, range, payload, safety, etc. I bet the M2 is a lot cheaper to insure.

Mike C.

A SF50 buyer is not an M2 buyer and an M2 buyer is not a SF50 buyer.