To commemorate the occasion, the designers and engineers pulled out all the stops and created this sizzling rocket. In the midst of celebrating 10 years of the SR22, Cirrus is getting ready to deliver its 5,000th airplane. Instead, we look at what people across the nation are doing with these special aircraft, and offer up our favorites.
Since Cirrus aircraft-and especially the SR22-are spreading like seeds to ramps everywhere, we present a “Top 10” list of sorts, without the late-night band or smarmy host. Cirrus is turning thousands of would-be pilots into owner pilots, and that’s simply good for GA. In the process, they demonstrated that pilots need not be superhuman, square-jawed aviators with “ The Right Stuff,” but could be regular people who just wanted to go from here to there safely and efficiently. They simplified the systems, panel and cockpit of the airplane, committed to new materials and manufacturing methods, and rethought the idea of what a GA airplane is. They designed their airplane around a sphere instead of a rectangle. And then along came Cirrus.Ĭirrus started from scratch with nothing but a blank sheet of paper. So those venerable legacy airplanes soldiered on, sporting cosmetic redos, overhauled engines and better avionics each year getting older. But years of stagnation and economic downturns chipped away at those legendary manufacturers, and an increasingly litigious society made designing new aircraft an expensive and speculative venture. In those golden years, every design that rolled off the line was embraced by pilots with a sense of breathless enthusiasm. It’s fair to say that Cirrus changed general aviation in a way that hasn’t been seen since the halcyon days following World War II, when it seemed everybody built airplanes.
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