Flying a small airplane is by far the best way to get from this particular Point A to that particular Point B. And if you want to take the airlines, well, you’d better plan for that journey to take longer than it would if you drove. At 160 nautical miles, AUS-GLS is the kind of trip that takes far too long in a car. For the flight, I chose to go from my home airport of Austin Bergstrom International (KAUS) to Scholes International Airport (KGLS) in Galveston, because the trip from Central Texas to a Gulf Coast Texas city represents an excellent demonstration of the capabilities of the SR20. I recently flew a new SR20 with Cirrus’ Matt Bergwall, who was kind enough to bring the airplane down to Austin from Duluth, Minnesota, for the evaluation. This is about 200 nm less than the range of the SR22. Still, with the miserly fuel consumption of the six-cylinder Continental IO-360-ES engine - 11.6 gph at 8,000 feet and 75 percent power - the SR20 manages a cruise range of 627 nautical miles, a figure that will put you in the air for just over four hours (with a 45-minute reserve), which is about as long as most folks want to be flying between stretches of the legs. The range of the SR20 is, likewise, less than that of the SR22, because the fuel capacity of the new SR20 is just 56 gallons, compared with 92 for the SR22. The G3s also benefited from the many quality-of-life improvements Cirrus made to its airplanes, including a better looking and more durable interior, much better functioning and easier-to-use entry doors, improved soundproofing and better fit and finish, which included recessed switches, a whole new, easier-to-reach circuit-breaker panel and available premium interior options. The result was a faster and more durable airplane that, in my opinion, handles better than the original does, with increased dihedral in the wing eliminating the need for the rudder/aileron interconnect on previous Cirrus airplanes. Before too long the SR20 got that same G3 treatment, including the new, longer wing, along with a higher profile gear designed to get the prop farther off the ground. It was stronger, lighter (around 40 pounds lighter in the wing alone) and much easier to produce. A few years back Cirrus introduced its SR22-G3, which featured, among other improvements, an all-new wing that included a redesigned interior structure and a carbon fiber spar. The first sub-$200,000 SR20s, it’s widely believed, were sold at a loss, and Cirrus didn’t start improving its profitability until it started being able to produce airplanes with many fewer labor-hours invested in each one. Part of that is a reflection of Cirrus getting better and more efficient at building airplanes. It should also be noted that over the years the SR20 has become a much better airplane.
There just didn’t seem to be that many of those customers. From the start, it has felt that this 200-horsepower cruiser was a solid performer that was a great fit for a certain kind of customer. It wasn’t that Cirrus wasn’t trying to sell 20s. The SR22 outsold the 20 by a margin that some years approached 10 to 1. But the lure of the 180-knot SR22 made the 150-knot-on-a-good-day SR20 look a lot less tempting. It wasn’t that there was anything wrong with the SR20 on the contrary, it was pretty much everything the company said it would be. That said, with Cirrus’ introduction shortly after of the substantially more powerful and better performing SR22, the SR20 suddenly seemed like a footnote. The fact is that we were all just getting to know the airplane, the company and, indeed, the whole concept of the fast, composite, fixed-gear four-seater. And it might be a little hard for those of us who have flown the two Cirrus airplanes to remember just how unrefined those first-generation airplanes were, but this, too, is true. It’s a little hard, 12 years after the fact, to remember the kind of controversy these features - the chute, in particular - generated, but they did.
CIRRUS SR20 PRICE MAC
Editor-in-chief Mac McClellan flew the airplane and weighed in on such eye-opening new features as the BRS whole-airplane recovery parachute system, the down-and-welded landing gear (unusual at the time for such a fast single) and the signature Cirrus side-yoke. June 2010 - BACK IN 1998 FLYING sent ace photographer Paul Bowen to Chicago to photograph a revolutionary new airplane, the Cirrus SR20.
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