The AOPA review of the Cirrus Jet contains some interesting parts. For example:
as we’ve come to expect from Cirrus, this model has a whole-airplane parachute. … And, because of the jet’s greater speed operating envelope, a pull of the overhead T handle in the jet doesn’t necessarily immediately fire the rocket to deploy the chute. Instead, if the airspeed is above about 135 KIAS, the autopilot takes control, doing what is necessary to slow the airplane.
Finally an aircraft manufacture writes some software that vaguely makes sense! (Don’t think that you need a parachute given the historical reliability of turbine engines? Consider that our government’s elaborate regulatory apparatus didn’t bother to insist that the drones imported into the U.S. have an automatic collision-avoidance capability with respect to human-occupied aircraft! If you hit a drone you’ll be a lot happier in a Cirrus than in Hillary Clinton’s Gulfstream G450!)
The airplane has limited payload and range, but it promises to be simple to operate. My friends are heaping derision on this product, comparing it to a TBM (longer range, higher speed turboprop). I think the right way to look at this airplane is as an improved SR22 for about twice the price ($2 million instead of close to $1 million for a fully optioned SR22). What if you want to take a few friends to Bar Harbor, Maine from Boston or New York? Or fly from Boston to D.C.? Or SF to LA? JetBlue and United beat (literally beat in the case of United, of course!) any GA aircraft for a flight longer than that.
Disturbing omission from the review: interior noise. The fuselage is composite, usually a recipe for an oppressively loud cabin. The engine is bolted to the top of the fuselage instead of placed out on a pod or a wing.
Readers: Now that you’ve seen this review, what do you think of the Cirrus Jet? At what price would it be cheap enough to revitalize consumer interest in general aviation? [personal estimate: $500,000; Flying from December 1970 says that an A36 Bonanza, a mass-market 6-seater, had a base price of about $50,000 back then ($307,000 in today’s mini-dollars).]
Related:
With a $662/hr operating cost and 300kt cruise, the cost per mile for the SF50 is about the same as a Phenom 100 and almost that of a PC12. Why is it so thirsty?
Depends what you mean by “consumer interest”. Most people don’t have half a million $ of spare change lying around. Even if you dropped a zero, most people are not eager to fly their own planes and don’t have $50K to spare either. Between the cost, the (perceived) risk and the amount of time and effort that is needed to become a sufficiently skilled pilot, flying is always going to be a niche hobby.
The past is a different country, where perceptions of risk were different (people smoked more, rode in cars without seatbelts), aircraft were cheaper, lawyers less litigious, etc.
If the aircraft is flyable enough for the autopilot to control it, why do you need to deploy the chute in the 1st place? It sounds to me as if there is a high potential for less experienced pilots to panic and pull the chute in recoverable situations and that their outcomes from landing under the chute may be worse than if they just flew the plane. Maybe what is needed is a panic button where you turn the plane over to the autopilot and autopilot figures out how to recover from the stall or whatever mess you have put yourself into thru pilot error. If the autopilot concludes that it is really unrecoverable, THEN it should deploy the chute. The only problem with this approach is probably the increased lawsuit potential because now you can blame the autopilot.
From the article, it sounded like they are going in that direction already with stick shakers and pushers, etc. to save pilots from themselves.
Billg: Why so thirsty? I don’t think anyone has ever managed to make an efficient low-HP turbine engine. That’s the major stumbling block in general aviation. A Bell Jet Ranger burns more idling on the ramp (not hovering, just spinning the blades) than does a Robinson R44 in a 100-knot cruise.
Jackie: “If the aircraft is flyable enough for the autopilot to control it, why do you need to deploy the chute in the 1st place?” Hmmm… that is a great question. What about engine failure (due to fuel exhaustion? that is a classic method!) when flying over rough terrain at night?
But Billg was comparing apples and apples. A Phenom 100 has TWO engines, each of which has the same thrust as the Cirrus’s one, but the fuel consumption is not double, it’s not even close to double.
Small turbine efficiency is not bad at high speed – their real problem is that they burn almost as much fuel idling as they do at full throttle. Standing still they use a lot of power to run their own compressors. At high speed there is a ramjet effect so less pumping is needed. Maybe someday someone will make a hybrid jet where at low speed you keep the thing spinning off of an electric motor or something to less the parasitic losses.
I suspect the Cirrus being limited to FL280 probably has something to do with its fuel economy compared to the other VLJs.
I would only step into one of these small planes if it had the parachute mechanism. I remember flying to college from Tampa FL to Burlington VT in the late 1990’s. I can’t remember the connection stop now (maybe it was some airport in New York State), but the connecting flight to Burlington was always on some small propeller plane – and it always scared the bejesus outta me with lots of shakes from turbulence when it climbed.
Joshua raises a good point. The FAA makes it impractical for a private owner to operate an aircraft at FL290 or above (blizzard of paperwork and local approval to get established then all kinds of recurring regulatory compliance hassles for RVSM). Jets are most efficient up high, e.g., FL410.
In practice the VLJs are often used on fairly short legs (e.g., Boston to New York) where they don’t get up to their high-efficiency cruising altitudes, so the FL280 limit may not too significant for people using this plane the way that they would have used an SR22.
I would take the PC12 over this silly little plane. Or even better a used king air! That has 2 engines (no parachute required for the proficient multiengine pilot). The used king air would cost half the price. It would carry more and go further! They are easy to fly too or so I have been told.