The airplane also added fuel, upping the capacity to 92 gallons for an extra margin on long legs. While the G2 had evolutionary changes, the G3 was a whole new Cirrus, with new wing, landing gear and avionics options. Soon after, in 2007, Cirrus launched the G3 model. The turbo option powered the Cirrus SR22 to new performance highs, with top speeds of better than 200 knots for the first time. With the G2 edition, Cirrus introduced a turbonormalized version, which made use of an aftermarket turbocharging modification by Tornado Alley. The interior was updated, and new options, including aftermarket air conditioning, were added. It was given flat-panel avionics with the Avidyne Entegra suite - we named the Cirrus/Avidyne partnership as a winner of our 2004 Flying Editors’ Choice Award. Over the next many years Cirrus continuously upgraded the model. It was, simply, a lot more airplane, and it was soon outselling its stablemate by a wide margin. It was a true 180-knot cruiser, it carried more fuel, and it had a much longer range than did the SR20. With more than a third more power than the SR20, the newest Cirrus was like a whole new machine. Once people started flying it, and I was among the first, the mood changed. The introduction of the first Cirrus SR22 wasn’t a closely guarded secret, and the model shared so much in common with the company’s original product, the 200 hp Cirrus SR20 single, that the expectations were muted. I don’t think I’ll give away his identity by saying that he is exceedingly proud of his new SR22. He wished to remain nameless here, though you might recognize his face, if you know him, in the photographs. The first one is owned by a prominent Midwestern businessman who has owned other SR22s. It is truly a distinctive-looking airplane. I photographed the first LCE on a couple of occasions recently. In addition, the 10 LCE airplanes boast a sharp paint scheme and the slickest SR22 interior I’ve seen. It’s got known icing capability, synthetic vision, enhanced vision, traffic, terrain, terminal charts, satellite weather and entertainment, the remarkable Perspective by Garmin avionics suite, the Cirrus Airframe Parachute System (CAPS), air conditioning, lightweight composite prop and much more.

In terms of technology, the Cirrus SR22 T LCE (the “T” model boasts the factory Continental turbocharged TSIO-550 engine) offers nothing new, which is to say it’s loaded with high-tech features. Chances are that, by the time you read this, they might be gone. Cirrus plans to build only 10 of the airplanes. Recognizing this fact, Cirrus created a special 10th anniversary version of the SR22 called the Limited Commemorative Edition (LCE). Looking at the Cirrus SR22 through this lens, it’s easy to see two things: that the airplane has changed substantially in the past 10 years and that it is a better airplane today than ever. Anniversaries like the SR22’s 10-year milestone can be good for a little perspective on how a design has changed and why. That’s quite an impression to have made in a relatively short time.Įven after its introduction, the biggest challenger to the piston-single status quo remained Cirrus, which continued to offer upgrades to its high-end single. With its feature-rich, high-performance four-place single, Cirrus put the pressure on its competitors to offer models that were roomy, fast and technologically advanced and that featured a wide variety of standard and optional safety utilities. I would argue that it is an airplane that, like the Bonanza and Skyhawk before it, changed the face of the light GA marketplace more than any other airplane of its time, both in the way we look at what an airplane should be and in the way in which manufacturers built and marketed their products. My only point is that, when compiling such a list, it’s impossible to leave off the Cirrus SR22. Suffice it to say, however, there aren’t many more.

At the certain risk of leaving out a few favorites, you can’t talk about the history of light aviation without bringing up the Piper Cub, the Beech Bonanza and Baron, the Cessna 172, 182, 210 and 206, the Piper Cherokee and Malibu and … well, I’ll let you fill in the rest yourselves.

When you look back at the historical arc of light general aviation, a few airplanes stand out as being so important that their introductions changed the way we flew and the way we looked at flying.

Cirrus sr22 interior