Cirrus vs. 182

CJ,

Badly out of date, slanted piece. I'd suggest that one look to
Aviation Consumer for a balanced look at the airplanes. On top of
that, I can't see why one would compare the two airplanes as they are
not targeted at the same market, given that one is turbocharged and
one is normally aspirated.

The turbo 182 is a superb airplane for the person who has a need to go
high, otherwise it's far slower than the Cirrus, so the comparison
isn't really accurate from that standpoint.

What the heck is "special white paint"? The material I've seen
indicates that the Cirrus has a white primary color with various
accent colors available, just as is offered for the 182. While
testing has indicated that even with black paint the airframe does not
come close to exceeding the temperatures that might cause it to
weaken, even when parked in the Sahara desert, the FAA has been
extremely conservative in the certification of composites and calls
for overall white paint.

The article was in error in a number of places, while emergency egress
is much better in the 182, it is not "impossible" in the SR20 and 22.
As part of testing Cirrus inverted an SR20 with its smallest employee
inside. She used the hammer that is standard equipment in the
airplane, broke out a window and was out within seconds. The Cirrus
has been spin tested, its recovery is conventional, as is the 182.
Neither are certified for intentional spins. The Cirrus did not
undergo the full regime of spin testing during original certification
and thus the published recovery method for departure from controlled
flight is to deploy the CAPS.

The article does not mention handling at all. While I like flying the
182, the Cirrus is far, far nicer and more enjoyable to fly, with much
more responsive handling.

There was no comparison of crashworthiness where the 182 does well,
the Cirrus does better because it has no yoke to hit, there is more
"flail" space for the front seat occupants. There is also more rear
seat room in the Cirrus, giving more "flail" space for those
occupants.

For minor damage, composites are easier to fix, hail tends to bounce
off, where it dents aluminum. If there is actually hangar rash to a
composite aircraft, you fix it by stirring up the epoxy, brushing it
on and smoothing to match, then heating it with a hair dryer. If it's
major damage, you replace the component. Aluminum is much more labor
intensive with far more parts, so composite construction is cheaper
and, due to the FARs, stronger than aluminum. At this point the
insurers like aluminium better because something like a loss of
control where the airplane goes up on a wingtip involves just
repairing the wing, which is cheaper than the needed wing replacement
on the composite airplane.

I'm wondering who wrote up the article as the ground handling is quite
comparable in the airplanes, the only place the castoring nosewheel
can be a handful is pushing the airplane backwards into a hangar,
something that is not a problem with the 182. Yes, a brake failure in
a castoring nosewheel airplane tends to cause one to discover that
taxiing is difficult if not impossible.

The airframe life and engine TBO numbers for the Cirrus were wrong.

I'm not sure I'd compare a turbocharged 182 to anything but another
turbocharged airplane, so until GAMI and Tornado Alley turbonormalize
a Cirrus, I would put this article in the dumper.

All the best,
Rick



"C J Campbell" wrote in message ...
This article pretty much describes the differences between the two airplanes
and points up the issues that I have with the Cirrus.

http://www.airplanenoise.com/article....%20Cirrus.pdf