Editor in Chief Thomas B. Haines has been reporting on the general aviation industry for two decades.
Trees tipped with just a hint of fall color blur by the Cirrus SR20's big windows as the stall warning blares in my ears. The airspeed reads about 60 knots; we are rotating around a point in a 60-degree bank. My feet are on the floor. Rate of descent: zero. Heart rate: normal.
I'd done such an exercise with various Cirrus company pilots while the SR20 was in development and several more times since the first customer delivery in July 1999. Urged on by a cuff on the outboard section of the wing leading edge, air stays attached to the wing long enough to keep the ailerons effective at very high angles of attack. When the airplane ultimately stalls, there is plenty of aerodynamic burbling to get your attention. Let go of the yoke, and the airplane bobs around a couple of times and starts a descent, fully flyable and very controllable.
Flash forward three weeks to an overcast October morning. A news alert tells the world that an airplane has struck a building in New York City. Over the course of a few hours we learn that the airplane was an SR20 owned by New York Yankees' pitcher Cory Lidle. Lidle and his California-based flight instructor were killed in the crash, which occurred when the two apparently were not able to safely make a 180-degree turn over the East River. They strayed over Manhattan high rises and ultimately struck one. The NTSB will decide what went wrong (see " Safety Pilot: Guilty Before Trial," page 54).
My mid-September SR20 flight over the Lake Superior shoreline flashed through my mind as I attempted to understand how Lidle's flight could have gone wrong. I've safely flown the East River corridor. It is narrow and can be challenging, but if you understand the confines ahead of time and are prepared for it, you should be able to execute the turn safely — especially if you are flying an airplane that handles slow, tight turns as well as an SR20. Given the extent of the damage to the airplane, we may never know what happened for sure in the Lidle accident, but without a doubt, the airplane was up for the challenge of the flight.
Deceiving looks
My recent flight in the SR20 was not based on some premonition; it was an opportunity to reacquaint myself with the first model that Cirrus built. The airplane that Cirrus pilot Justin Dillon and I flew was N109CD, serial number 9, so it was very similar in appearance and equipage to the first customer SR20, delivered to Walt Conley on July 20, 1999. With some 3,500 hours on it, N109CD belongs to the Cirrus flying club, where it teaches Cirrus employees to fly and provides personal transportation to the employees, all for the price of gas. What a deal.
Although it's been less than seven years since 9CD came off the Duluth, Minnesota, assembly line, this airplane is different in many ways from the three or four new ones squirting out of the factory every day here in the twenty-first century. In fact, Cirrus has made some 2,000 engineering changes to the models over the years, streamlining the manufacturing, improving reliability, and enhancing serviceability. The new ones may look like the old ones on the outside, but beneath the skin and certainly in the cabin, looks can be deceiving.
Conley kept his SR20, N415WM, for several years and became such a fan of the company that he ultimately went to work selling airplanes for Cirrus. Four joint replacements have forced him to give up flying—at least for now—and he reluctantly sold the SR20 to a pilot in Oregon. "That and the greed of California and its tax structure," Conley editorializes, condemning California's high sales tax and personal property tax on aircraft. "I loved the airplane and was misty eyed when I let it go."
Although retired, Conley is still the consummate-and witty-aircraft salesman. To his California prospects who said they couldn't afford an airplane, Conley challenged, "Do you own a house in California? Well, you can sleep in your airplane but you can't fly your house."
Knowing that I own a Beechcraft A36 Bonanza, Conley shared one of his sales pitches. "I used to always tell A36 drivers, 'Today you're going to do something you've never done before: Get in on the pilot's side.'"
Those two large forward-opening doors have presented Cirrus engineering and manufacturing teams with two of their biggest challenges. In fact, I once broke a door latch while taxiing out for a flight in one of the SR20 prototypes a decade ago. Company founders Dale and Alan Klapmeier won't let me forget. "Don't let him close the doors; he breaks them," I always hear when ever I visit the factory for a flight. Like many other aircraft manufacturers, Cirrus struggled to get the doors to close tightly and latch easily — and without any weight penalties. That finally happened with the change to the G2 models, the results of which debuted in 2003. The 14-month project was originally an effort to reduce costs and improve performance and maintainability, according to David Coleal, who was executive vice president when he led the project; today he is president and chief operating officer. The G2 project did that and more, resulting in a complete redesign of every airframe part and every interior piece-solving some of the issues customers had been complaining about, such as door latches. Now, to open the door, you push a button on the exterior and the door swooshes open. To close it from the inside, slam it shut.
Although the door button is noticeable on the outside, the most significant changes occurred on the inside. There, interior pieces were redesigned to fit together better and to enhance the interior's automotive-like styling. All of those steam gauges in old serial number 9 have been replaced in the new models by an Avidyne primary flight display and solid-state gyros, vastly improving situational awareness and reliability. The old Arnav multifunction display is supplanted by an Avidyne MFD that bristles with features. Air conditioning, turbonormalizing, satellite datalinked weather, terrain warning, air-bag seat belts, dual exhaust, elimination of the vacuum system, new engine mounts, an anti-icing system, better cup holders, improved door seals, new landing lights, and heavy-duty brakes are just a few of the many, many enhancements that set today's Cirrus off from the ones that wowed the world just a few years ago.
Peek into the engineering department and you get the sense that today's airplane is not the end state. The constant improvements are part of the company strategy to encourage buyers to upgrade to new models more often. For those ready for the next step up, Cirrus announced recently that it will build a personal jet. Stay tuned for more details from Duluth.
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