January 30, 2009
I was in Duluth, MN earlier this week picking up my 4 year old Cirrus SR22 from two months in factory rejuvenation. While waiting for the very competent service and paint guys to address squawks, I had the chance to get an Up Close tour of the new Cirrus Personal Jet (Vision, SF-50 or whatever the code name of the week is).
It’s a very pretty plane on the ground. Swooping lines, a powerful V-tail reminiscent of a sleek, small whale, big windows and a compact frame. The fuselage mounted engine looks a little out of place, but hey it probably makes the most sense out of the way of FOD.
This is only flying prototype at the current time; N280CJ is painted red as you may have seen in all of Cirrus’s marketing collateral. It’s built primary for real world air flow testing, which is pretty typical for airplane manufacturers. This one is primarily made of fiberglass, except for the tail, whereas the final plane will use more expensive and lighter carbon fiber throughout.
Here’s one example why Carbon Fiber is better: the tail on the prototype, minus the aluminum flight controls, went from 120 lbs to 30 lbs when switching from fiberglass to carbon. Now if the Boeing Dreamliner ever ships, it may soak up a good part of CF production, which would raise already high costs. We’ll see.
The wingspan has been narrowed to fit existing hangars, especially those used with the popular SR2x (hangar specs).
Since it is Cirrus, it’ll have a whole airframe parachute, tucked into the nose. Parachute technology must have advanced significantly as this plane is almost twice the weight and around 50% more speed than the ‘chutes on the SR22. I hope that Vpd will be higher than 133 kts for the Jet.
“We’re in year five of an eight year program” said my guide. This means deliveries in late 2011 or early 2012. Like everyone else, Cirrus is claiming 100 deliveries in the first year, and 150 in the next. As of this writing, if you place an order now, you’ll get S/N 531, which you’ll likely get delivery in 2014, given a few order cancellations and speculators.
There’s still a lot of work to be done. Avionics need to be tested and tweaked. The precise engine angle and thrust vector needs to be finalized. Even the position of the landing light hasn’t been determined yet. Integration testing, more prototyping, interior finishing – it’s a big project that necessitates 140 full time people.
Garmin is the “very likely” choice for the Jet. The current plan is a further enhancement of Garmin G1000-inspired Perspective that is choice for all new Cirrus owners. The current plan is to have two large screens (approximately 12x14” of course landscape – since its Cirrus) for PFD/MFD and three small screens (approximately 5x7”) for backup instrumentation, NAV/COM, etc.
The Perspective System has been a huge hit for Cirrus / Garmin, further marginalizing Avidyne. I once preferred the Avidyne over the G1000 until two things happened: a) I flew the G1000 in Mustang, including the really useful keypad, b) I had 3 PFD and 2 MFD Avidyne failures in four years of operation. Now I prefer the G1000 both for functionality and reliability, so this is a good move for Cirrus. My heavily depreciated SR22 will only depreciate more now, alas.
When I visited Embraer in Feb. 2008, I saw their avionics test bed. They could shake down functionality by simulating every single input and verifying output of the P100 and P300 version of the G1000. I don’t know if Cirrus has something equally sophisticated.
There are some design tradeoffs in the Jet I strongly disagree with. Antiskid brakes will not be an option currently. There have been a huge number of SR2x issues due to brakes, including a few fires that totaled entire planes. Most of these are due to operator error. It’s not possible to buy a general purpose car today without ABS brakes. The Jet should definitely have antiskid brakes, if a $15,000 cheapo car can have it. It will significantly reduce operator error. How many drivers in warmer climates know proper braking technique without ABS in a car? One of my favorite experiences in the Mustang is stomping on the brakes after landing with complete confidence the plane won’t do something stupid. Need another reason? Look at all the Eclipse issues with blown tires and extra long runway requirements, partly caused by incorrect braking technique (as well as wrong tires).
Ice protection has not been determined yet. The single Williams FJ33-19 will likely not have sufficient reserve thrust for hot wings. So there will be need to be some combination of engine inlet deicing, likely using bleed air, as well as boots and/or something new and fancy like electric deicing. Icing on that big tail will be interesting.
Cirrus goal is that the Jet will use the majority of runways that the SR22 uses at sea level. That may be the case for low elevation airports, but I have difficulty imagining that a Jet will require the same runway as a Turbo SR22, in Santa Fe (at 6,000’) for example. In general hot and high performance on any jet is not as good as a piston, especially a turbo-normalized one. If you use higher elevation airports, check the performance tables carefully.
My final risk factor is lack of redundancy. Sure an extra engine would be nice. I’m not worried about a turbine engine failing in flight. I’m more concerned about lack of other redundant systems. Alternators are one of the banes of the SR2X. Will the Jet have both a generator and an alternator? How big will the battery be? Batteries on a jet are critical to avoid hot starts, one of which can kill a $250k engine in seconds. Cirrus will have to be careful about weight and expense to meet their goals, so something will have to give.
There are currently no plans to build a full motion simulator for the Jet. That means that most of the training will occur in fixed base simulators and the actual plane. Unfortunately, many emergency and degraded situations cannot be trained in the real plane for safety reasons. Cirrus is also considering factory training without a known partner like Flight Safety. It’d be preferable if a full motion sim was at least on the timeline, but it isn’t currently. Unlike a Turbo SR22 which goes to similar altitudes, a type rating is required for any turbojet including the Cirrus. A full motion sim would help a lot of transitioning SR2x pilots with the challenges of a type rating.
The current plan is to use some of the 120 Cirrus Service Centers for Jet maintenance. Service Centers will obviously require additional training and certification to handle of a Jet with pressurization, a turbine, retractable gear, etc. Since I’ve had a lot of spotty and inconsistent experiences with Cirrus maintenance on a single engine piston, I’m skeptical that these same service centers will know what they are doing with significantly more complex systems.
Cessna and Embraer along with their engine partner, P&WC have options for predictable maintenance pricing. It’s unclear how well Cirrus will be able to do that. Williams is known for good, albeit expensive maintenance on their FJ44 and other lines. How well Williams works with a small remote Cirrus Service Center is unclear.
I was in Duluth with an experienced TBM pilot. We discussed why anyone would buy a TBM when the Jet was available and shipping in quantity. The TBM is significantly more expensive, has a bit more range, and a bit higher ceiling (31,000’ vs. 25,000’). However, there is no FADEC, plus the noise and vibration of a propeller, and a cramped interior. The Cirrus Jet further marginalizes the utility of the TBM, which is already squeezed by the Mustang on the high end.
The huge cabin, useful load and range will put a Meridian owner to shame. The Meridian will make even less sense with a plane so much more capable than is significantly less expensive. I reserve judgment on the Piper Jet until I learn more about it.
Apparently, the whole development could be done faster with that scarcest of commodities these days – additional capital. Cirrus is financing development through deposits and operational profits rather than long term capitalization.
If you place an order today, it requires a $100,000 fully refundable (until 60 days before they build your jet), unsecured deposit. Doing the math, it means that Cirrus has taken in about $50M of deposits to fund development and certification. A couple hundred or so position holders have opted to use $50,000 of their deposit towards a new SR22.
About 90% of position holders are current Cirrus piston owners. Approximately 10% of the current installed base has purchased Jet positions, which is a tremendous testament and vote of confidence, especially since the deposits are unsecured and the delivery date and specifications are not guaranteed. When orders were placed years ago for Mustangs or Embraer P100s, prior to certification, certain specifications were contractually guaranteed. Not so with Cirrus. So Jet deposit holders clearly have a lot of trust in Cirrus, based on their current satisfaction.
Assuming Cirrus continues to sell 300-600 SR2x planes per year, which would mean an additional 30-50 or so Jet orders per year at the current pace, injecting another $3-5M per year of development capital. The Eclipse disaster, with subsequent complete loss of deposits, may also scare off some otherwise enthusiastic buyers who now fully understand what “unsecured deposit” really means.
That’s simply not enough to bring a new Jet to certification. So Cirrus will clearly ask position holders for additional progress payments along the way, as did Cessna, Embraer and everyone else. They will need more capital from deposit holders to complete certification. Even an additional $100,000 per deposit holder, yielding another $50M, may be enough if Cirrus is careful with costs. The plane is expected to cost somewhere upwards of $1M, so 20% for deposits is not an unreasonable stretch without additional external capital.
So it looks like the Jet has a reasonable chance of reaching certification and deliveries even in this economic climate, assuming the majority of position holders accept another progress payment.
Cirrus is aiming for around $1M. With a 2300 lbs useful load, you can expect that Cirrus will be introducing new options and upgrades for years to come. How about an In-flight Entertainment Center? High speed Internet connection? Part 135 package? Chemical lav? Luxury interior? Weather RADAR? European package (ADF, Enhanced Mode S transponder)? Built in Satphone? Electronic Flight bag? Enhanced Oxygen?
As Cirrus and Embraer know, there are lots of ways of upping the price with fancy options. (I wish Cessna would offer a premium interior option on the Mustang).
So whatever the base price, I’ll speculate here that the typical purchase price will easily be 20% higher when you add the more desirable common options.
One of the financial disappointments of owning an SR22 was depreciation. Since Cirrus builds as many planes as fast as they can with little lead time, older planes do not hold value well. You can expect that with new options and new generations, older planes will not hold their value as well as a TBM. So the Jet may seem cheaper to acquire, but significant value may be lost through faster depreciation than other planes.
After my visit, I maintain my opinion that this plane will be the winner in the Single Engine Jet category. It fills nicely the gap between a Turbo SR22 and a single engine turboprop like a Meridian or a TBM.