john smith wrote:
With the recent spate of Cirrus accidents, the question arises, "Is it
time for a special certification review?"

For an unrelated project, I downloaded the FAA aircraft registration
database a couple of weeks ago. (Available at:
http://www.faa.gov/licenses_certific...raft_download/ )
I just did a couple of quick queries on it that might help answer the
question of what the Cirrus fleet size is.

Total Cirrus Design SR-20 entries in the master file: 597
Total Cirrus Design SR-22 entries in the master file: 2022

SR-20 entries in master file, listed by airworthiness date:

39 (blank)
1 1981
1 1997
5 1999
78 2000
46 2001
84 2002
96 2003
78 2004
86 2005
83 2006

If you assume that each aircraft went into service the year of its
airworthiness date, you can get the fleet size by year:

End Fleet
of size
1997 2
1999 7
2000 85
2001 131
2002 215
2003 311
2004 389
2005 475
2006 558 (through early October)

SR-22 entries in master file, listed by airworthiness date:

174 (blank)
121 2001
262 2002
304 2003
431 2004
442 2005
288 2006

Fleet size by year:

End Fleet
of size
2001 121
2002 383
2003 687
2004 1118
2005 1560
2006 1848 (through early October)

As a comparison, I did the same queries for the Cessna 172, including
the models 172, 172[ABCDEFGHIJKLMNPQRS], 172RG, P172D, R172[EGHJK],
T172, and CE-172-R172. Because this covers a much longer period of
time, some of the assumptions above are not as likely to be valid.

Total Cessna 172 entries in the master file: 26697

Cessna 172 entries in master file, listed by airworthiness date:

1825 (blank)
13 (garbled)
79 1955
780 1956
540 1957
447 1958
517 1959
494 1960
457 1961
448 1962
608 1963
782 1964
901 1965
909 1966
507 1967
765 1968
721 1969
438 1970
463 1971
625 1972
979 1973
1065 1974
1202 1975
1387 1976
1430 1977
1289 1978
1294 1979
880 1980
725 1981
248 1982
163 1983
159 1984
157 1985
97 1986
23 1987
27 1988
41 1989
42 1990
21 1991
38 1992
49 1993
41 1994
48 1995
48 1996
228 1997
344 1998
381 1999
385 2000
295 2001
291 2002
277 2003
216 2004
312 2005
196 2006

Fleet size by year:

End Fleet
of size
1955 79
1956 859
1957 1399
1958 1846
1959 2363
1960 2857
1961 3314
1962 3762
1963 4370
1964 5152
1965 6053
1966 6962
1967 7469
1968 8234
1969 8955
1970 9393
1971 9856
1972 10481
1973 11460
1974 12525
1975 13727
1976 15114
1977 16544
1978 17833
1979 19127
1980 20007
1981 20732
1982 20980
1983 21143
1984 21302
1985 21459
1986 21556
1987 21579
1988 21606
1989 21647
1990 21689
1991 21710
1992 21748
1993 21797
1994 21838
1995 21886
1996 21934
1997 22162
1998 22506
1999 22887
2000 23272
2001 23567
2002 23858
2003 24135
2004 24351
2005 24663
2006 24859 (through early October)

Matt Roberds