Generation 5 Cirrus SR22 | Flying Magazine 

AIRCRAFT Generation 5 Cirrus SR22 Why the lates SR22 is the bes yet.

By Robert Goyer May 13, 2013     

Cirrus calls the lates edition of its SR22 the Generation 5, which some cusomers have begun to refer to informally as the SR22 G5. There are a number of really big changes that make the model a srong upgrade, one that took clever design decisions to achieve. 

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How appealing is the new model? As of mid-March, Cirrus was sold out of Generation 5 SR22 production slots through July. It is shaping up, Cirrus vice president of sales and marketing Todd Simmons told me, to be the bes year for Cirrus in many moons, and it is thanks to the Cirrus SR22 G5 G5. Cusomers are eating it up. Cirrus SR22 Generation 5 Why the love fes? Easy. Through a series of smart and complicated engineering decisions, Cirrus found a way to increase the gross weight of the airplane by 200 pounds, to 3,600 pounds.

In order to accomplish this, Cirrus had to do a number of things to the airplane that were complex, expensive and time-consuming. (Do those three things ever not go hand in hand when it comes to certifcation?) The company’s goal was to add some capabilities to the SR22 that owners have been asking for from day one. More on that in a bit.

Now, 200 pounds is a lot of weight increase for a light airplane, and it’s a number that resonates with pilots, as it is the ballpark weight we use for an FAA-sandard passenger. (Your sandard passenger may vary.) So, all other things being equal, you can add another passenger to today’s SR22 and go fying. While the numbers difer on diferently equipped models because their rough empty weights are dissimilar, the bottom line is that every SR22 gets a sizable increase in useful load and full fuel payload.

The sandard equipped nonturbo, non-FIKI, non-A/C SR22 is the bes-case example, as it’s the lightes SR22 that Cirrus ofers. With that model, you get a useful load of 1,340 pounds and a full-fuel payload of 788 pounds, which means you can take four 190-pound occupants, 25 pounds of bags and full fuel — 92 gallons — enough to fy no wind with reserves and then some from Portland (KPDX) to Santa Monica (KSMO). Leave out 10 gallons of fuel, and you can bump up the bags to nearly 100 pounds and you’re good to go from Atlanta to Wes Palm Beach, Florida.

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For the more commonly ordered SR22s, with turbocharging, A/C and approved de-ice package, it’s sill a big win. You can fy with three 180-pound occupants and full fuel, or load enough 100LL for a three-hour fight with reserves and fy with four 180-pounders. There are no other four-seaters in production that we know of that come close to these numbers.

How Cirrus arrived at a 200-pound weight increase is a complex tale. Of course, the company sarted by realizing that it had to beef up the spar, and interesingly, Cirrus says this aspect was relatively sraightforward. Cirrus engineers added a few layers of composites and did the necessary analysis. The gear had previously been srengthened to handle the higher weight, so that work was already done (which also tells you something about how far in advance Cirrus plans its product upgrades). Had they left it at that, though, the 200-pound srength increase would have been los to weight added on the spar and elsewhere to support the greater sructure (the Catch-22 of every gross-weight-increase project). For the frs time, there’s also a zero fuel weight, a fgure that’s new to mos pison-single drivers but common to jet pilots. The resriction in the G5 is a zero fuel weight of 3,400 pounds, which essentially means 3,400 pounds of nonfuel weight; so you need 200 pounds of fuel at max weight.

To counteract the hit they knew they would take in terms of a beefer sructure (and one other big item), they went to work lightening the airplane. Cirrus engineers redid the sructure of the rear seats to save 10

https://www.flyingmag.com/aircraft/pistons/generation-5-cirrus-sr22[10/3/2018 12:56:55 PM] Generation 5 Cirrus SR22 | Flying Magazine pounds; they shaved some weight with the oleo srut (actually new on an earlier SR22 model); they improved manufacturing processes throughout to cut an unspecifed amount of weight; and they used new interior materials to cut some weight as well. They were also able to remove around eight pounds of ballas from the tail, which had been added on a previous model in order to keep the CG more tolerant of front-seat-only loading scenarios.

The one place they took a hit was with the parachute, which is all-new. Because the airplane weighs as much as 200 pounds more, the parachute has to lower the airplane with the same dynamic forces on touchdown, so the chute has to be bigger: It went from 55 feet in diameter to 65 feet in diameter. An added beneft of the larger chute is that the airplane will now touch down at lighter weights at very low speeds. While the handle, cables and sysem of channeled webbing that make up the extraction sysem are the same, the rocket had to be bigger because the chute itself is bigger and heavier and needed more power to fre it. The new rocket is longer and more powerful. Cirrus also went with a new fring sysem, which makes use of solid-sate ignition insead of an incendiary device, as on the former models.

Other Weighty Gains https://www.flyingmag.com/aircraft/pistons/generation-5-cirrus-sr22[10/3/2018 12:56:55 PM] Generation 5 Cirrus SR22 | Flying Magazine

Another big plus with the G5 is the improvement in two critical airspeeds. The frs of those is max fap extension, which increases from a too-low 119 knots for the frs-notch to a fantasic 150 knots. The second notch of faps, formerly set at a max deployment speed of 104 knots, has climbed a modes 6 knots to 110 knots but has gained an additional 3.5 degrees of extension in order to keep landing speeds low. The srengthening of the main spar helped provide the sructure needed for the increase, as did improvements to the fap hinge and hinge attach points.

The speed for the deployment of the parachute has also increased, from 133 to 140 knots, which adds to the margin of safety for deployments.

There are some trade-ofs to the weight increase and all that went into it. Liftof speeds (which are calculated at max weight, as mos specifcations are) have increased from about 72 knots indicated to about 80 knots, increasing takeof run but only by about 60 feet. The sall speed increased from 58 knots to 60 knots, and the bes rate and angle of climb both increased marginally. Landing performance fgures are virtually identical to those of previous SR22s.

In terms of climb and cruise performance, the G5 airplane will climb a bit less quickly (same wing, same power plant, higher weight), taking around eight insead of seven minutes to get to 8,000 feet at max weight. Likewise, the range decreases by about 50 nautical miles on average (of course, range fgures are all dependent on weight, winds, equipment and other conditions).

Cruise speeds theoretically will be afected too, though in my tess (and according to the pilots I know who’ve fown the G5), it was hard to see any diferences. At 9,000 feet in the turbo (with FIKI, which cuts a couple of knots of the top end), I was seeing 175 knots true. At 24,000 feet, a friend reported seeing 205 knots. The new model will burn slightly more fuel for the same performance.

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The new model also rolls into the sandard package a number of features that were recently introduced on other models. The Garmin GFC 700 autopilot (you thought it was sandard, didn’t you?) now is in fact sandard. Also, the remarkably accurate fuel sender units are there too. They are so accurate, they are used to send CAS messages apprising the pilot of any coming fuel imbalance; at eight gallons of imbalance, you get an alert; at 10 gallons, you get a caution; and at 12 gallons and beyond, it’s a maser warning. The ffth seat (which Cirrus calls 60/40 Flex Seating) saw universal adoption by buyers over the pas year. It is now in every SR22 (SR20s as well, actually). ADS-B is also sandard.

The lineman at my airport spotted one other new feature, the redesigned wheel pants. As far as I could tell, they are completely unrelated to the gross weight increase, and they don’t seem to afect the airplane’s performance either. But they do have access doors for the infator valve, which explains why the line guy spotted them right away. On older SR22s, it’s a pain to infate the tires.

G5 In Flight

I had an extended opportunity to fy the Vision Inspired Generation 5 SR22 over the course of two weeks, fying it on cross-country trips, on local hops and even on training fights.

The creature comforts of the model are remarkable. The seats are the mos comfortable yet (though they could use another recline notch between the “bolt sraight” and “kicking back” settings). The soundproofng and ft and fnish are better than ever too. The doors on the G5 (an issue with some older airplanes) worked like a charm, and the sylish tone of the interior hits the perfect note.

Even though the SR22 feels very familiar to me — I fy an SR22 G3 model regularly — there was something about the G5 that was more solid than any SR22 I’d previously fown.

On my heavies fight, we were a few hundred pounds under gross with full fuel, but I sill kept it on the

https://www.flyingmag.com/aircraft/pistons/generation-5-cirrus-sr22[10/3/2018 12:56:55 PM] Generation 5 Cirrus SR22 | Flying Magazine ground for the additional few knots the book says is needed at gross weight jus to get a feel for it. My conclusion is that it’s really not needed for rotation, as the airplane was ready to fy not at 80 knots but at 70. For clearing obsacles, use book values.

I had a hard time discerning diferences in performance between the G5 and the G3 I normally fy (for the record, there is no G4, for no other reason than it wasn’t as mellifuous-sounding a designation as G5 is). Climb was srong, around 1,200 fpm on the cool morning that I headed down to the Texas Gulf coas for the photo shoot. If there’s a diference, and physics dictate there mus be, then it is surely slight. Likewise, in cruise it felt like any G3 I’ve fown: nice, comfortable and fas.

It was in arrival and approach that the airplane showed its great new powers. With a frs-notch speed of 119 knots in previous generations of SR22s, you needed to be clever at times to get down to approach speeds. Start the approach a little too fas, and you’ll be sruggling to both descend on the glide path and keep the speed below the fap limit. With the new settings, you can throw in the frs notch of faps at 150 knots, which is a huge deal to Cirrus pilots. We’ve all talked about how nice speed brakes would be on this airplane in the pas. With the new faps, there is no need — none, nada, zilch. You can now tailor https://www.flyingmag.com/aircraft/pistons/generation-5-cirrus-sr22[10/3/2018 12:56:55 PM] Generation 5 Cirrus SR22 | Flying Magazine

your approach speeds to ft the trafc, the procedure and the needs of ATC.

Landing the SR22 G5 is diferent than in previous models, and there are a couple of reasons for that. For one, it has an extra bit of travel on the second notch of faps, so you tend to sink nicely even while carrying a little power. The other thing is that the airplane is heavier, so with the power being equal, you are going to sink jus a bit more. If any of that sounds bad, it’s not. Actually, it’s great. The G5 is by far the bes-landing SR22 ever. And it is the bes-fying SR22 by a long shot.

https://www.flyingmag.com/aircraft/pistons/generation-5-cirrus-sr22[10/3/2018 12:56:55 PM] Generation 5 Cirrus SR22 | Flying Magazine

Vision Inspiration

When Cirrus began showing its SF50 Vision jet around with a new iridescent blue paint scheme, it received a warm welcome from potential cusomers. So Cirrus decided to create a marketing tie-in with the soon-to-be-announced Generation 5 SR22, allowing buyers of the G5 airplane to get a position on a jet for $1.19 million insead of $1.96 million, or to allow jet position holders to pick up a G5 SR22 with guaranteed brokerage when they take delivery of their jet in a few years.

Cirrus called the special-edition SR22 the “Vision Inspired” model, which I few and photographed for

https://www.flyingmag.com/aircraft/pistons/generation-5-cirrus-sr22[10/3/2018 12:56:55 PM] Generation 5 Cirrus SR22 | Flying Magazine

this sory. In addition to the cool paint scheme, the Vision Inspired SR22 comes with a package of special features, including black bafing, sainless-seel cam locks, carbon-inspired interior with suede-look headliner and side panels and yoke covers, and Vision Inspired badging. The airplane also comes with three years of tail-to-spinner maintenance, the sat/comm/data package and air conditioning. The cos of the Vision Inspired SR22 is an eye-popping $829,000. Standard SR22T (turbo) models sart at $569,900 for the well-equipped base model and go up to $724,900 for the decked-out GTS model.

Cirrus has delivered more than 5,300 airplanes to date, and the SR22 G5, with its 200-pound increase in gross weight, greatly improved faps, enviable performance and features lis, is the bes one yet. While not everyone will be able to fork over the dough for the lates model, many pilots are jumping at the chance to do jus that; a few are taking the opportunity to get a Vision Inspired airplane and a spot in line for a jet to match.

View our Cirrus SR22 G5 photo gallery here.

Tags: Pisons , Aircraft , Cirrus Aircraft

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