You may wonder why there’s a picture of a jet included with the pictures of this plane. It’s very simple – when I went to pick up my new Cirrus, I put a deposit down for the upcoming Cirrus Jet.
I bought this plane only 2 years after I purchased my first Cirrus. There were several reasons. First, this plane was turbo-normalized. That’s technical talk for the fact that the motor was able to keep sea-level pressure in the manifold that greatly increases performance. Normally aspirated planes lose power as they climb into less dense air, but the turbo-normalized plane keeps its efficiency all the way to cruising altitude. Second – this plane had air conditioning, while the 2005 didn’t. That’s not a problem at cruising altitude, but taxiing and waiting to take-off while you’re on the ground in Arizona can be really uncomfortable. Lastly, the avionics on this plane were better than the ones on the earlier model.
When I went to the Cirrus plant to pick up the plane and receive my 3 days of transition training, the newly announced Cirrus Jet prototype was at the plant. I was able to get a demonstration of the jet and climb around inside the plane. I was very impressed. It had a lot more room than my current Cirrus and was very comfortable.
Cirrus was advertising this as a “personal jet”, not even a “very light jet”. They claimed it would be the lowest and slowest jet available, with a service ceiling of about 27,000 ft. and a cruise speed of around 300 knots. That’s about 50% faster than my current plane was. I figured it would be a perfect solution for a pilot like myself. It had the same landing characteristics as my current plane – cross the fence at around 75 knots when landing. It would be something I could be very comfortable flying by myself. When I ordered it, they were expecting that they would start delivering the Jet in 2010.
