Are you an aviation enthusiast or pilot? Sign up for our newsletter, full of tips, reviews and much more! When Cirrus Aircraft launched its G6 model last January, I was impressed, and I’m not the kind of pilot to get easily impressed by an SR22. But the G6 was something different. Even with many of its more »
Up where we were, it was smooth, cruising along at Flight Level 270, Utah’s Painted Desert, swaths of reds, browns and golds panning behind us as we flew. Just like the light, we were, as they say, golden, with pilots in other planes at altitudes both below us and above squawking nonstop about the rough more »
You’ll be reading a lot about the Cirrus Jet (officially, the SF50 Vision Jet) in the weeks and months to come, but nowhere except in Plane & Pilot will you read the real story behind the story. Look for our coverage of this remarkable little jet in our upcoming August issue. And for now, a quick more »
When visions of glass cockpits dance in our heads, we personal aviation pilots usually think of the Garmin G1000 avionics suite, which for more than 15 years has been the de facto standard avionics package in the vast majority of new production Part 23 light planes. With the introduction of its best-selling SR22 G6 high-performance more »
The SR22 is the most produced light plane in the world, and many of Cirrus’s sales are to return customers. Cirrus is just really good at adding enough new features to its latest models that a lot of existing Cirrus owners find they just have to upgrade to get the latest cool stuff. The G6 more »
You know you’re not in for any surprises when flying a Cirrus.
How would the fancy SR22 perform on a mountain strip, dueling in the dirt with more rugged distant cousins?
Some aircraft change the game. Looking back, designs like the Cessna 172, the Beechcraft Bonanza, Piper Cub, Mooney M20 and a handful of others have changed the way aviators—and outsiders—perceive general aviation.
It’s hard to believe it has been 10 years since Cirrus launched the SR22. It’s doubtful that many people had any idea that, from its humble beginnings in 1984, the company that brothers Alan and Dale Klapmeier built would produce what would become the world’s best-selling single-engine piston aircraft.
In a milestone development, Cirrus Industries Inc. officials announced on Feb 28th that Cirrus Aircraft will be sold to China Aviation Industry General Aircraft Co. (CAIGA).
Has it really been a full decade since Alan and Dale Klapmeier introduced the first version of the airplane that would eventually conquer the general aviation world?
 Working under the code name “Project Kiwi,” Duluth, Minn.–based Cirrus Design has been laboring over the last 20 months in relative secrecy to certify its first FAA-approved Flight Into Known Icing (FIKI) system on its flagship aircraft, the SR22. |
 When the engineers at Cirrus Skunk Works branded the company’s Garmin-based, next-generation glass-panel system, Codename Fighter, the moniker was more apropos than they might have thought. |
Wow, now that’s a lot of trees. I’m 9,500 feet over the Amazon rain forest, and the only thing I see from horizon to horizon is a bumpy carpet that’s toned British-racing green. A couple days ago, I set off from the Cirrus plant in Duluth, Minn., for what was then a distant port, pointing the nose of this spanking-new Cirrus SR22-G3 south and saying to myself, as I climbed to my initial cruise altitude, “São Paulo or bust.”
 For those of you who haven’t heard, Cessna was just recently dethroned as one of the top-selling general-aviation companies in the world. For the first two quarters of this year, the total number of Cessna Skyhawks and Skylanes was bested by Cirrus Design’s combination of SR20 as well as SR22 sales. In fact, the vast majority of Cirrus’ sales came from its showpiece, the new SR22-G2. |
The Navajo Indians believe that everything has its own rhythm, its own beat, its own time to birth, to flourish, to change, to adapt. That’s how the land and its native people originated, they say. The story goes that the world began in darkness, but the people weren’t happy in that place. They gradually moved up through three more worlds before coming to where they are now, a sacred land known as the Monument Valley.
 Downscaling an existing model isn’t a new trick. Piper has done it a number of times with the Cherokee 140 and Warrior. Maule offered a less powerful, nosewheel trainer version of its M7 bush bird taildragger. SOCATA continues to produce an entry-level model in the Tampico, essentially the same airplane as the Trinidad sans retractable gear and constant-speed prop, and with 90 less hp. |