I was lucky to get a T-hangar with electric service at my home field (02C, Capitol Airport, Brookfield, WI) shortly after getting my SR20.
Last Sunday I had the plane out on the ramp to clean the hangar when the owner of the Twin Comanche in the hangar next door rode up on his Harley to test fly the Comanche after maintenance and before using it for his normal daily commute to what has to be the best job in Oshkosh.
His name, Tom Poberezny, is familiar to most of you as the president of the EAA.
I got to meet his wife, Sharon, when she rode up on her Harley about ten minutes later.
Tom was very interested in the SR20 but unfortunately after working all afternoon on the hangar I had just popped open a beer shortly before he arrived.
Tom said that he was scheduled to talk to Alan Klapmeier during the coming week and that Alan would sure be surprised to hear that with about twenty SR20’s in the country, one of them is in the hangar next to him.
Tom spent a few minutes in the SR20 on the ramp and Sharon sat in the SR20 on the ramp while Tom flew the Comanche.
Both seemed favorably impressed and I really wish I could have taken them up in it.
I’d like to see his name on the Cirrus waiting list; perhaps for an SR22.
I related to Tom that with Cirrus’s roots being in experimental aviation, homebuilders were very interested in the SR20 and I had been invited to speak at meetings of three different EAA chapters.
I also told him that it is quite commonly mistaken for a homebuilt and that one of the owners had thought it an insult when it should be considered a high compliment.
After Tom had completed his chores he remarked to me as he was leaving that with as often as he’d seen me stop to show people the SR20 it was going to take me a long time to get the hangar clean.
I wish I’d thought to ask them as they were leaving to pull their bikes up next to the SR20 for a picture.
02C is a smaller airport and the plane draws a lot of attention. The SR20 owners on larger airports must get swamped.
Of course with the doors open and Sharon sitting in the left seat in her Harley leathers the traffic was even more than usual with people who had been out earlier coming back for another look.
My next SR20 related task is to go up with my instructor to get accustomed to flying the SR20 from the right seat so I can give guest pilots the left seat.