Well, that explains it. Their Airnav comments are riddled with people complaining about their fees, including Cessna 172’s. So I don’t think you were singled out because you were flying a Cirrus. I never was.
Richard is pulling me out of the closet 
I am a true fan of the DA40, but I do agree that the comparison is more DA40 versus SR20. In that case, kind of feel out what is more important to you. The SR20 is more comfortable, but the DA40 is a better high hot short field performer than the SR20. The poster that said he could not get 10,000 feet out of the DA40, was flying a DA40 that must have been having problems. I flew gross in my DA40 much of the time, usually 10,500 to 12,500 never a performance issue. Many hundreds of hours flying a DA40 in the mountains, but you do have to lean the engine appropriate for density altitude. If you try to climb full rich, not going to work up high.
The SR22 is a different class of aircraft. High performance and great for cross country flying. High performance planes are less forgiving of poor technique but that can be mitigated with training. A low time pilot with less than average skill is much safer in a DA40. But you can fly an SR22 safely, just takes more training.
The DA40 is in a different league of operating costs. But again is a different class of plane. As far as fun of flying. The DA40 with push rod controls, a center stick and better visibility, is just a true pilots plane. Having gone from a DA40 to an SR22, I never enjoyed hand flying the SR22. The controls are heavier, the spring tension gives an artificial feed back, the controls are more sensitive in pitch than roll, and the trim is overly sensitive. But they have great autopilots, and that is how most people fly cross country aircraft in the real world.
I suspect that your travel plans will change over time. Under 500 nm in a DA40 is pretty easy. Above that and you would want a better cross country platform. 4 Adults 700 nm, going to be hard with either plane. Going to Seattle on a regular basis… plan on having to deal with some nasty weather. Neither plane is going to have great dispatch capability especially in the winter around the cascades.
The DA40 is a better instrument trainer. Cheap, stable, easier to hand fly and G1000 has better situational awareness compared to Avidyne. The future is GX000, no matter what type of airframe you move into.
I think your Pro/Con list is pretty accurate, although just to comment on a few issues.
The NA SR22 is not a known ice aircraft. Fly a Diamond or non-FIKI TKS Cirrus into ice, the plan is the same. Get the heck out of it quickly. Ice will take both of them down, and neither are legal to fly in ice.
The NA SR22 is not 50% faster. If you have a non-flight school DA40 with the variable prop, high speed fairings and recent upgrades like tuned power-flow exhaust you are looking at 140-145 KTAS versus 165-170 KTAS. Plus the seats and trims are better. The flight school DA40’s, often are not tuned for higher speeds. They have the higher clearance bigger or no fairing, sometimes a fixed pitch prop, and normal exhaust since the power flow is a pricey option. If you have not flown one of those, it is a different aircraft.
The NA SR22 and the DA40 have similar ceilings and both climb like pigs in the mid teens. The SR22 has a ceiling of 17,500, and the DA40 16,800, they will both get there if you are patient. But throw in turbulence, up and down drafts like over the Sierras, ice, and you don’t want to be there with either one.
As far as the safety record, either plane flown like they are supposed to be flown are very safe. The pilot determines the outcome of a flight 99.999% of the time. The Diamond is more forgiving, which might factor in if you fly infrequently, or are low time. I would not let that sway you from the Cirrus. Just plan on a more intensive training and a recurrent training schedule. I would not fly any plane without appropriate initial and recurrent training.
Most people move through several planes before they are done. It may be that a DA40 is a better plane for you the first 3-500 hours and an SR22 the next 3-500 hours, then you will move to a TP for 3-500 hours, and then a jet. Don’t worry too much about your decision. Like a first job, your first plane is likely just a stepping stone.
Jeff,
Thanks for the comprehensive response. You’ve hit the nail on the head for many of the questions I’m pondering about efficiency, value and practicality of the SR22 platform over the DA40 platform. I think I need to focus my shopping on the SR22 now…
The DA40 compares to the SR20. The SR22 is a whole ‘nother animal.
I have a thousand hours in DA40s. I flew them all over the country from Florida to California, Indiana, Massachusetts and the Bahamas. My regular cruise numbers were 145 kts TAS on less than 10 gal/hr. Out West I would take it up to 14,000 ft.
Last year I bought a new SR22 and have almost 200 hours in it.
The DA40 was more fun, I miss it.
The SR22 is better for traveling, I’m enjoying it.
Despite having the parachute in the Cirrus, the DA40 is a safer plane.
The parachute saves you in the event of an engine failure at altitude. They say engine failures are rare but you read about one every other week. The Lycoming IO360 doesn’t have engine failures. http://www.avweb.com/news/maint/best_aircraft_engines_208683-1.html
The parachute doesn’t protect you from stupid pilot tricks low to the ground. The DA40 flight characteristics are so forgiving it saved me from stupid several times.
This week I’m flying from Florida to North Carolina in the SR22. I’ll get there about 20 minutes sooner than I would have in the Diamond while burning an extra ten gallons of gas. We’ll enjoy the air conditioning on the ground in Florida. My wife will enjoy a better ride in turbulence. Having the parachute will make me feel more comfortable when flying over an undercast or the mountains or at night.
If it flies it’s good, just different flavors of goodness.
Another biased 10 year SR22 flyer here, but whatever you get you will want to go faster, further and to carry more. Your missions will expand with your experience and the capability of your airplane, and the SR22 gives you a lot more room to grow. Repeating others but there is not enough good that can be said about the chute. It is a game changer and will keep you and your passengers alive. If your spouse/passengers are jittery it also can make the difference between them supporting your flying and resenting it. Sub $200k for a repacked NA22 G2 is a bargain.
Hi Steve,
I am a fairly new pilot (less than a year), and I did all of my training in the Diamond DA-20 and DA-40. LOVE those airplanes. Incredibly fun to fly and very forgiving! I miss G1000. I was completely convinced of buying a DA-40 and eliminated the Cirrus from contention early on from a quick google search that came up with insurance costs over 10K. (not even close, whoops!) Thanks to COPA I realized my google search was not accurate at all. Lesson learned.
To make a long story short, here’s my thoughts after 4 months of SR22 ownership and about 75 hours of flight time so far.
-
Cost of ownership so far has been very reasonable. I purchased an airplane that has CAPS already repacked and has a low time engine. Good history.
-
There are several aspects of the DA-40 that aren’t necessarily GREAT when you have passengers. Thin seats, hot cockpit, noisy vents, and the center stick. (I love it, but when you have a customer, friend, or your wife with you, they don’t seem as thrilled)
-
The Cirrus is much more refined. Comfortable seats, very roomy backseat, great ramp appeal compared to the Diamond. It just feels much more luxurious and comfortable, especially over longer distances.
-
Speed speaks for itself. Love it.
-
I personally have found the Cirrus MUCH easier to land, especially with winds. The Diamond can be very bouncy with wind and has an interesting landing profile.(hold the nose DOWN in the flare!?!?! haha) Once you learn it, it is simple, but the Cirrus to me just seems easier.
Hope this helps. Keep in mind, I am a low time pilot and learning a lot along the way myself. Lots of the previous comments are from guys who have forgotten more than I have learned thus far.
I have about 600 hours in a DA40. I got my PPL in it and my instrument rating. I sold it and purchased an SR22T which I flew for 400 hours before moving up to a Meridian. What Dan and Chuck said is spot on and I couldn’t agree more. I looked long and hard at the SR20 when I purchased the DA40 and I agree those two planes are much more comparable than a DA40 is to an SR22.
I’ll also add that between the DA40, the SR22T and the Meridian, I felt the safest in the DA40 and had the most fun hand flying it.
COPA is a great resource and a huge plus to owning a Cirrus. But I’ve been a member for more than twice the amount of time I have owned a Cirrus and every year I get way more than my money’s worth.
Steve you’re asking a great question, but perhaps too soon. I notice that you have 15 hours and appear to be learning to fly for the utility value of travel frequently, and with PAX. It’s a big purchase, so I’d suggest completing your PPL and doing some travel with an instructor along the way. Use both airplanes for comparison as you’ll learn about flying in either one, though it’s ultimately best to master one airplane at a time. I think you’ll find that a flying fishbowl can get pretty uncomfortable as you bake in the sun; it’s an issue in a Cirrus but a big issue with a canopy. Comfort will matter more to you than actual flight time, and the Cirrus is great in this regard.
But let’s get to the big issue: CAPS. It’s human nature to unweight that feature now, because deep down you wouldn’t be learning to fly if you really believed you’d one day need a parachute. With it’s glider lineage the Diamond is forgiving and has racked up a good record in part because of how it’s used. But your mission is for an IFR travel machine, and IMC is infinitely safer with CAPS. Your mission includes terrain, and, again CAPS turns this risky profile into a much more prudent choice. I wouldn’t give much thought to Avidyne or Garmin at the price point you mention. You’ll be happy and effective with either, though the newer panels are improved. But neither panel will provide an answer when you’re in IMC and oil is spraying on the windshield. And there’s an excellent thread here about an oil covered windshield caused by a 10 cent grease fitting. Much of your training will focus on abnormal situations and safety. We run checklists in such situations and the Cirrus has the best list as it begins with “Consider CAPS” and, when interventions prove fruitless, ends with “Activate CAPS”.
Yesterday I flew my jet from Vegas to Scottsdale. Cruising happily in the clouds, with light rime icing and no visibility, my Backup gauges quit. Circuit breaker popped. I had 2 turbines purring, 2 independent PFDs and an MFD, 2 good generators and a good main battery. But I sat there and realized that there was a remote possibility of losing the electrics (there always is; in my plane it’s a junction box failure/fire) and I knew that if the panels went black I’d have no way to keep the wings level and pitch correctly to descend. So I exited the clouds and ordered a stratus. In contrast, a Cirrus has an excellent loss-of-control safety device, and I hope you’ll choose to buy CAPS for your family.
Steve,
Two very good choices.
I did my IR training in a G1000 DA40 and really liked the plane. The visibility is unmatched and with the center stick and general control feel it really is a pilots airplane. Other advantages include a separate prop control and a trim wheel. It’s also a more stable instrument platform for all the hand flying I did for the IR rating.
I purchased a SR20 which others have pointed out is a better comparison to the DA40. It is equally economical to fly, about the same speed in cruise although a significantly higher VNE which allows faster descents.
But most important to me is a more comfortable cabin and much better ride in any kind of turbulence. I most enjoy flying when my family is with me and the cabin and the ride make that all much easier.
Having flown behind both the G1000 and the Avidyne, I find the Avidyne to be much more intuitive and user friendly. It’s true that with the G1000 there’s five ways to do something but with the Avidyne there’s one obvious way. Kind of like Mac vs. Windows I suppose.
Good luck with your choice.
That is disconcerting. What Kind of backups does the Stang have? Since we run the same avionics package I am a little interested. II test my backups every flight, but I am pretty sure I have no CB on my backups. I have run the wiring diagram quite a few times, and really short of an unsurvivable fire, can’t see how you could lose the whole G1000 3-scren array, but have always had some comfort in those ridiculously simple analog backup instruments.
Steve…great post…and what a huge reaction. I had DA40 for a year nice plane NO complains what so ever, I also flown an SR22/T for the last 13 years including a journey of over 25,000 miles from Alaska to Australia via Europe…I would never try it in a DA40 because:
Flying a DA40 is like driving a Hyundai Elantra - slow, safe, boring and cheap.
Fltying SR22/T is like driving a Ferrari 458 - fast, fun, thrill, eye candy, expensive and dangerous.
Now you can choose amir
I know it is off topic, but doesn’t every electrical device connected to ship’s power have to have a CB somewhere? In mine the backup analog AI is connected to what they call the Emergncy Power System (EPS) bus.
The backup AI has a battery so it can run a while with these breakers pulled, but the circuit that keeps the battery charged is protected.
Maybe you are talking about a G1000 thing I don’t understand, but I can’t imagine any electrical device in a plane with no circuit breakers somewhere in the line.
As I am sure Chuck will point out, the DA40 has an outstanding safety record. And I suspect it is largely due to the airframe.
But not largely due to the safety features of the airframe, which are good but which can’t save you from a Loss of Control accident. I think the airframe discourages cross-country flight into the kinds of conditions that most often get pilots in trouble, when there is weather. The combination of the bubble canopy creating a solar furnace in good weather and the low wing loading amplifying turbulence when it is bad acts as a brake on the long cross countries that carry the higher risks. Just look at the number of planes on IFR flight plans in FlightAware at any time.
According to the NTSB database, there have only been 4 fatal accidents for the DA-40 in US, three of which were botched IFR procedures and one buzzing accident. There have been no fatal stall/spin accidents. Aviation Consumer stated in 2011 that the fatal rate was 0.35/100,000 hrs, the lowest in GA.
Steve, as you posted this question on the guest forum of the COPA website, you are missing the vast quantity of information available on the member side. The DA40 comparison is brought up frequently, so a search there would reveal numerous additional insights. Also, the tag “newbie” reveals numerous stories of pilots who trained in Cirrus aircraft to get their private certificates and instrument ratings.
Glad to see COPA members providing you with information that helps your quest.
Curiously, I discovered this post when I got a Google new alert about this thread on the public guest forum! [;)]
Cheers
Rick
As the safety guy in COPA, let me quibble about using loose terminology to describe relative safety of airframes. Is it “dangerous” or “more challenging”?
As Curt opined, the Diamond fleet has an enviable safety record with few accidents. That’s good.
However, the size of the fleet is less than one fifth of the Cirrus fleet, approximately 1,200 planes to 6,000 planes. There are many aspects of small fleets that may affect accident rates, such as the kinds of pilots drawn to fly those aircraft and the capabilities used when flying those aircraft. If the typical missions differ, then the exposure to risks are different. And if the pilots approach the plane differently, then the pilot proficiency and currency may differ.
While skeptics might consider my observations as justifying a higher accident rate for Cirrus aircraft than others, recent data proves otherwise. Using NTSB data, this chart shows that the Cirrus fatal accident rate has declined dramatically in the past 5 years.
So, is the Cirrus SR22T dangerous? Not in the hands of the owners and operators who espouse the COPA Culture of Safety.
Choose your airplane wisely.
Choose your instructor wisely.
And choose your flights wisely.
Cheers
Rick
I’m an outlier. I flew mine across the country multiple times. I never found it any worse in turbulence than a 172 or my Cirrus. In some ways I think it has the perfect amount of performance to get you out of trouble compared to its competitors (for example, there have been one or two DA-related fatalities in an SR20 that I don’t would have happened in a DA40) but not too much to make you want to fly through a sub freezing cloud deck or in the flight levels.
Steve,
I am not sure this will work for you, but I will tell you what I am doing.
I am about 2 weeks of good weather away from taking my check ride. Only have about 7 training flights remaining.
Today I purchased a 2004 DA- 40 that I plan to fly for a maximum of 6 months after I get my license. It just had the engine overhauled less than 20 hours ago and I know who has flown it for the last 8 years.
I plan on ordering a 2016 SR22T sometime in the first quarter of the year. I have flown the 22 and know that is where I eventually want to be. I am thinking (hoping) that because I bought the DA40 used and at a reasonable price that I will be able to get most if not all of my money back on this plane and put towards the 22. I live in middle Georgia so I want air conditioning before the summer hits.
The used 40 will allow me to build some experience while I wait on the 22 once its ordered. It will also give me that “step up” experience instead of going straight to the 22. I know there are many opinions on this.
Ask someone more experienced in aviation than me but I would think you could experience a used DA40 for 6-12 months and then sell without much financial loss if any and get a 22.
I was able to attend a CDM several months ago thru the invite of my Cirrus salesman and learned many things while there that are not in the PPL training course. This website, the Cirrus fly ins, and the Cirrus community are additional reasons I want the Cirrus. I look forward to meeting lots of new friends. I do not see this type of camaraderie on the other manufacturer websites.
i agree. I flew my Diamond for almost two years, put several hundred hours on it, got my IFR and sold it for 5-6k less than I paid for it. thought that was pretty good.
They seem to sell well. A flight school bought mine. I didn’t even use a broker. I just listed it myself on Controller.
Chuck the Mustang has electric backups with a separate battery. As I understand it they run on ships power and the battery is always in reserve. Testing it is a pre-flight item. Mine is popping the breaker in flight and the dials fail.
As for a total failure of all 3 screens, it’s a very remote possibility. We train it in the sim, with a junction box failure. With that failure we lose all electric, sans the backups which supposedly live in their own little world. No flaps, manual gear extension, and backup brakes. It works. Because I’ve seen it in the sim it entered my mind when I looked at the dead backups and thought about whether I could need them. I’m a big chicken.