Well I just got home from the trip with Walt and Paul to dlh. I must say the 22 is a awesome bird.
My first question was what is the useable load? The answer is better than expected!. The useful load for a a model 22 is advertised at 1150 lbs,
Pauls b model with a stormscope came in at 1147lbs usefull load. Way to go Cirrus! After seeing the smile on Pauls and Walts face after the demo ride I know this thing goes. Test pilot,Paul,Walt climbing at 110kias had a climb of over 2000/ft per min. I could only stay for one day so I get to miss all the fun. To put everyones mind at rest all is well at the plant. The troops are doing a great job and the quality looked excellent. Pauls bird had the most extensive walk around than any other bird. Walt,Ed, Paul did the walk through, the 3 most anal pilots you can meet. Production looked great with many birds in the line. We were there Monday the first day after the layoffs, I was amased at the attitude of the employees. They know they have to rally together and get the job done, and I think they will. I know there is going to be a lot of people who will be discussing this topic with speculation and in my opinion this could be a bad thing. As it was put to me “we are at the employee levels that we were at in the end of October” so as you can see there was rapid expansion in employees in the last few months.Well gotta go so check the pix page for emailed photos…Ed
