Im sure you have new students that like to get into a cirrus to do their training so if you had a student working on their instrument, which airplane would you recommend given that after the instrument rating the student would like to travel cross country and build qulity time in type.
Would you recommend a Cessna Turbo 182T, Diamond DA40-XLS, SR20, SR22 Turbo - no specific mission just building time in type initially and then doing some decent cross country flying.
Well...no specific mission will result in no specific answer!
The Turbo 182T is going to be the easiest airplane for most people to transition into, especially if they have a background in flying Cessna 172s. It will make for a quick checkout and arguably the safest platform for a low time pilot to cruise around the country in. It's slower and significantly more stable, which is a plus for low time pilots in IMC. It will carry a larger payload, which might be a factor if the pilot wants to carry friends with them on their trips. It will be more tolerant of short runways and inadvertent icing encounters.
The Turbo SR22 is better at actually going places since it's significantly faster. It would also be better if the pilot's end goal is to own an SR22. I think it could also be considered safer than a Turbo 182 in some respects because of the parachute or FIKI certification, if equipped. When it comes to crossing mountains, I'd take an SR22 over a 182 any day because of the parachute and faster cruise speed which equals less time over the hostile terrain.
The SR20 is similar to the SR22, but cheaper and slower.
I don't know enough about the DA40 to comment on it.
What are your thoughts with getting the Avdyine versus Perspective? Does the difference justify the 75K price difference?
Yes, absolutely. The Perspective package is hands down better by almost any metric.
From a design standpoint, the Perspective is better. There are more backups and fewer points of failure than Avidyne. A person needs to look at each system's schematic to understand how refined the Perspective is.
The maintenance costs on a Perspective are typically lower, as the Garmin components are more reliable. Avidyne had trouble with screens failing, which could end up being a $30,000 repair.
Generally, the Perspective package is more powerful as well. It can display more weather products with greater detail, display more navigation data, integrate with more addons like the Enhanced Vision System camera, and so on.
Because of these differences, I believe Perspective-based aircraft will retain their values better than Avidyne-based. If a pilot buys a Perspective for $450k now and sells it in five years for $375k, or buys an Avidyne for $350k now and sells it in five years for $250k, they're coming out $25k ahead on on the Perspective ($75k lost versus $100k lost).
