reliability and sr22

Guest Discussion
1

Hello everyone

Not on the waiting list, just an interested pilot and keeping my eyes open for my local club.

A question and a remark: How reliable is this plane? I have never owned a plane myself and haven’t got that many hours (about 200) and I have to say that I have only ever had a sporadically not working autopilot on a 3 hour flight and once a transponder that didn’t work. Other than that, I never had an in-flight failure on anything.
Given that there are only about 50 SR20s out there and your postings read a bit like a who-is-who of aircraft problems, I ask myself whether the SR20 has a reliability problem?

Any opinions on this? Considering that it’s really intended as an IR platform also, I would not be to happy to get failures of the AI every 20 or so hours.

I would be glad to hear from anyone to put all this a bit into perspective.

My remark on the SR22. That’s well and nice and as I see going into the direction of the Lancair 300. However, and I think the european pilots would agree with me, in Europe there is very little of a market for plus 200HP aircraft. It’s simply too expensive and the trend (here) is going the other direction.

In fact, I think the SR20 is great value for money, at least on paper. However, with this boost in power, it’s just going the conventional way like all the others. Does anyone know why? I mean, there’s not an awful lot of innovation in just putting huge engines into a plane, anything will then fly (see helicopters :slight_smile:

Just as an example: Dyn’Aero of France have just brought out there latest gadget, the MCR4S, a four (meaning 3 seater plus luggage) seater. Travels at 150kts, 1100 ft/min, using 20 litres/hour at 75% on a 100 hp engine, (470kg useful load, as a note, the Arrow that I fly has just 10kg more). Now of course, I am also aware that it’s not the same level of instrumentation and luxury on this plane. However, I would have thought that it might be more interesting for Cirrus to work on getting the weight of the SR20 down and heading to more performance on smaller engines? (Cost is a lot less in Europe, if you use 20 instead of 40l/h)

My final question: Does anyone know whether there are any plans by Cirrus to introduce a diesel engine in the future?

This is a great forum and very interesting, but then so is the topic

Regards, Chris

2

Do you have more info on Dyn’Aero such as a web site?

Just as an example: Dyn’Aero of France have just brought out there latest gadget, the MCR4S, a four (meaning 3 seater plus luggage) seater. Travels at 150kts, 1100 ft/min, using 20 litres/hour at 75% on a 100 hp engine, (470kg useful load, as a note, the Arrow that I fly has just 10kg more). Now of course, I am also aware that it’s not the same level of instrumentation and luxury on this plane. However, I would have thought that it might be more interesting for Cirrus to work on getting the weight of the SR20 down and heading to more performance on smaller engines? (Cost is a lot less in Europe, if you use 20 instead of 40l/h)

My final question: Does anyone know whether there are any plans by Cirrus to introduce a diesel engine in the future?

This is a great forum and very interesting, but then so is the topic

Regards, Chris

3

Chris:

  1. Do not confuse open exchange of experiences for learning and feedback purposes with unreliability of the subject. Some of the quirks have to do with subassemblies (like engines), not neccesarily of Cirrus origin.

  2. My bird has 140+ hours on the hobbs. Had vacuum pump failure after 30 hours ("If it fails, it’s likely in the first 10’s of hours…). Electrical Standby pump kicked in seemlessly, I noticed only by the lights coming up). Mechanical pump replaced within hours. It’s been running fine ever before and after.

  3. IMO the SR20 is a VERY safe and reliable IFR platform, as e.g. a pump failure is merely “news”, even in IMC, not necesaarily “bad news” like in most other fine planes. There’s always a backup to fall back on (read the specs on the -my recommended- “C” model). The Practical Standards Test for the IFR ticket will have to be reviewed, as partial panel isn’t what it used to be…

  4. SR22? Wait and see. Higher certified load will help, the extra knots issue is always a matter of willingness to pay the (considerable) incremental $ for the additional knot. A diesel would help reducing operating costs dramatically in Europe with 100LL prices at over $5/gallon (if I did my math right from francs/litre to $/gallon…)

  5. SR20 IMHO is great price/performance. Even if you can’t take four adults and full tanks. There’s still the endurance with less than full tanks and comfortable 4 seating to go places in Europe…

Other opinions welcome!

Cheers

(A happy SR20 driver from Europe)

Hello everyone

Not on the waiting list, just an interested pilot and keeping my eyes open for my local club.

A question and a remark: How reliable is this plane? I have never owned a plane myself and haven’t got that many hours (about 200) and I have to say that I have only ever had a sporadically not working autopilot on a 3 hour flight and once a transponder that didn’t work. Other than that, I never had an in-flight failure on anything.
Given that there are only about 50 SR20s out there and your postings read a bit like a who-is-who of aircraft problems, I ask myself whether the SR20 has a reliability problem?

Any opinions on this? Considering that it’s really intended as an IR platform also, I would not be to happy to get failures of the AI every 20 or so hours.

I would be glad to hear from anyone to put all this a bit into perspective.

My remark on the SR22. That’s well and nice and as I see going into the direction of the Lancair 300. However, and I think the european pilots would agree with me, in Europe there is very little of a market for plus 200HP aircraft. It’s simply too expensive and the trend (here) is going the other direction.

In fact, I think the SR20 is great value for money, at least on paper. However, with this boost in power, it’s just going the conventional way like all the others. Does anyone know why? I mean, there’s not an awful lot of innovation in just putting huge engines into a plane, anything will then fly (see helicopters :slight_smile:

Just as an example: Dyn’Aero of France have just brought out there latest gadget, the MCR4S, a four (meaning 3 seater plus luggage) seater. Travels at 150kts, 1100 ft/min, using 20 litres/hour at 75% on a 100 hp engine, (470kg useful load, as a note, the Arrow that I fly has just 10kg more). Now of course, I am also aware that it’s not the same level of instrumentation and luxury on this plane. However, I would have thought that it might be more interesting for Cirrus to work on getting the weight of the SR20 down and heading to more performance on smaller engines? (Cost is a lot less in Europe, if you use 20 instead of 40l/h)

My final question: Does anyone know whether there are any plans by Cirrus to introduce a diesel engine in the future?

This is a great forum and very interesting, but then so is the topic

Regards, Chris

4

there’s not an awful lot of info on the MCR4S yet on the webpages but here are some that you might find useful:

www.avnet.co.uk/touchdown/ (UK distributor)

News, Politics, Sports, Mail & Latest Headlines - AOL.com (Dyn’Aero Site)

http://www.dynaerodoess.com/ (German distributor, in German but with nice pictures)

:slight_smile: Chris

Do you have more info on Dyn’Aero such as a web site?

Just as an example: Dyn’Aero of France have just brought out there latest gadget, the MCR4S, a four (meaning 3 seater plus luggage) seater. Travels at 150kts, 1100 ft/min, using 20 litres/hour at 75% on a 100 hp engine, (470kg useful load, as a note, the Arrow that I fly has just 10kg more). Now of course, I am also aware that it’s not the same level of instrumentation and luxury on this plane. However, I would have thought that it might be more interesting for Cirrus to work on getting the weight of the SR20 down and heading to more performance on smaller engines? (Cost is a lot less in Europe, if you use 20 instead of 40l/h)

My final question: Does anyone know whether there are any plans by Cirrus to introduce a diesel engine in the future?

This is a great forum and very interesting, but then so is the topic

Regards, Chris

5

Chris:

  1. Do not confuse open exchange of experiences for learning and feedback purposes with unreliability of the subject. Some of the quirks have to do with subassemblies (like engines), not neccesarily of Cirrus origin.

I agree. But it’s difficult to get the picture right. Maybe I am too low-time to know exactly what to expect in terms of reliability.

  1. SR22? Wait and see. Higher certified load will help, the extra knots issue is always a matter of willingness to pay the (considerable) incremental $ for the additional knot. A diesel would help reducing operating costs dramatically in Europe with 100LL prices at over $5/gallon (if I did my math right from francs/litre to $/gallon…)

I would say you calculated about right. Just as a side note: rumour has it that the Morane-Renault diesel to be used in a diesel version of the TB20 is nearing certification. the diesel TB20 is already flying but I don’t know when it will be commercially available.

  1. SR20 IMHO is great price/performance. Even if you can’t take four adults and full tanks. There’s still the endurance with less than full tanks and comfortable 4 seating to go places in Europe…

Other opinions welcome!

Cheers

(A happy SR20 driver from Europe)

Hello everyone

Not on the waiting list, just an interested pilot and keeping my eyes open for my local club.

A question and a remark: How reliable is this plane? I have never owned a plane myself and haven’t got that many hours (about 200) and I have to say that I have only ever had a sporadically not working autopilot on a 3 hour flight and once a transponder that didn’t work. Other than that, I never had an in-flight failure on anything.
Given that there are only about 50 SR20s out there and your postings read a bit like a who-is-who of aircraft problems, I ask myself whether the SR20 has a reliability problem?

Any opinions on this? Considering that it’s really intended as an IR platform also, I would not be to happy to get failures of the AI every 20 or so hours.

I would be glad to hear from anyone to put all this a bit into perspective.

My remark on the SR22. That’s well and nice and as I see going into the direction of the Lancair 300. However, and I think the european pilots would agree with me, in Europe there is very little of a market for plus 200HP aircraft. It’s simply too expensive and the trend (here) is going the other direction.

In fact, I think the SR20 is great value for money, at least on paper. However, with this boost in power, it’s just going the conventional way like all the others. Does anyone know why? I mean, there’s not an awful lot of innovation in just putting huge engines into a plane, anything will then fly (see helicopters :slight_smile:

Just as an example: Dyn’Aero of France have just brought out there latest gadget, the MCR4S, a four (meaning 3 seater plus luggage) seater. Travels at 150kts, 1100 ft/min, using 20 litres/hour at 75% on a 100 hp engine, (470kg useful load, as a note, the Arrow that I fly has just 10kg more). Now of course, I am also aware that it’s not the same level of instrumentation and luxury on this plane. However, I would have thought that it might be more interesting for Cirrus to work on getting the weight of the SR20 down and heading to more performance on smaller engines? (Cost is a lot less in Europe, if you use 20 instead of 40l/h)

My final question: Does anyone know whether there are any plans by Cirrus to introduce a diesel engine in the future?

This is a great forum and very interesting, but then so is the topic

Regards, Chris