Buying an older Cirrus

mshunter said:
But if you do a quick climb through it, and forget to turn it off (like the typical week-end warior Cirri owner), it's not a good system.
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That can be said for Cessna, Piper, and I bet Mooney drivers as well. Understanding the limitations and systems is needed. A friend runs a countdown clock for his TKS system, just as a backup to monitor his usage.
 
TF has it right. The TKS system is awesome WHEN USED AS IT'S DESIGNED TO BE USED. People flying the airplane around in known icing conditions for hours at a time? It's a problem of culture and training. Cirrus factory and demo pilots do it and brag about it (even before the airplane was FIKI certified). The sales guys over there tell people the airplane can do a lot of stuff which it can on paper, but which doesn't regard safety very highly when out in the field. Period.

TKS is a great tool but not a great crutch. Same goes for boots. Blow them too early and you're hooped. Same goes for heated wings. Heated wings aren't an excuse to tool around in ice for hours. What if the bleed valve fails or the switch takes a dump?

You guys are going around in circles but the bottom line is that any ice and rain protection system has limited capabilities and having it installed is no excuse to go fly around in ice. If Joe Weekender doesn't respect the system and its limitations, that's just Darwin at work. I just hope he doesn't come down on my house.

ComplexHiAv8r said:
That can be said for Cessna, Piper, and I bet Mooney drivers as well.
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Nope, Mooney drivers DEFINATELY aren't just weekenders and dummies. :rolleyes:
 
Murdoughnut said:
I ran across this ad on controller.com - seems like a great price!

http://www.quickconsultant.com/Cirrusforsale.htm

And no, I don't know anything about the plane or the person selling it. I posted this because it was pertinent to the discussion, not to advertise an aircraft for sale :)
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Seems high priced. You can find similar vintage SR-22's for nearly the same price (within about 20K), or you can find similar vintage SR-20's for 20-30 grand less than this one.
 
I've flown through a lot of ice out of Denver and I've never had a problem with my boots "bridging" the ice when I turn them on too soon.
 
Murdoughnut said:
Hmm, interesting - I don't know much about the Cirrus aircraft so I wasn't sure.
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I don't know that much, other that poking around on the internet, comparing prices of similar looking airplanes with similar times. I'd never want to own one, too much crap on them to maintain.
 
SpiraMirabilis said:
I've flown through a lot of ice out of Denver and I've never had a problem with my boots "bridging" the ice when I turn them on too soon.
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I actually remember reading a writeup about a GLA airplane that went down because they followed the aircraft manufatcurer's recomended procedure for waiting for (IIRC) 1/4 to 1/2 inch of ice build up before blowing the boots. Then the FAA issued a AC about blowing the boots as soon as yoou get into the ice, and to keep ccling them when ice accumulates. Let me see if I can find it. standby 1......

Edit: I knew I wasn't crazy. Here is the link. Read it, and then re-consider waiting blowing the boots.

http://www.ntsb.gov/NTSB/brief.asp?ev_id=20001208X07277&key=1
 
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