As some of you may have heard, the cruise control on Jamie's Hooptie of the airstream finally gave out. Fortunately, and surprisingly, Jamie decided to man-up and replace it with something a little more modern:

The Cirrus SR22 GTS Turbo. Comfortable seating for four, airframe parachute recovery system, air conditioning, de-ice, full-glass avionics with synthetic perspective, enhanced warning ground proximity system, real time lightning Stormscope, new gen. Skywatch, etc. etc.

Max. cruise: 219KTAS, Max Range w/ reserves: 1000nm, max operating altitude: FL250.

Looks awesome Jamie. Can't wait to see it!

 

Jamie should buy something from his era.

 

That is badass!!! I like that the new era of small aircraft have all of these new safety features. You always hear about crashes on the news and wonder...

But with a parachute... that would make me feel all warm a cozy inside.

Congrats Jamie!

 

I agree. It's badass.

He'd been talking about it for a while. Glad he stepped up and did it. The old man has earned it, and that thing must be a blast! No speeding tickets either . . .

 

+1... exactly how I feel... I'm actually really scared of non-jet private planes for some reason, the parachute thing although probably not necessary would be a big selling point for me

 

Congrats Jamie! What a great plane... My buddy is buying a twin-engine Cessna (old one), but he always talks about the Cirrus. Congrats!!!!

 

YouTube - Top Gun "need for speed" scene

 

Congrats Jamie! I don't know what FL250 means or what all the little buttons and knobs do in the cockpit, or what avionics with synthetic perspective is . . .but I bet it's really good. Although I really like those tribals on the landing wheel cover thingies. Do they cost extra?

 

Someone needs to enlighten me. I always figured small planes had a steering-wheel-type control for pitch and roll, and pedals for yaw. What's with the joystick, and why is it off-center like that? Why are the pedals on the other side?

 

LOL. Pedals on both sides, but nice use of Microsoft Paint by somebody to mark through them on the left side (as you can clearly see if you click the enlarge bar above the photo . . .).

Cirrus created basically the first clean-sheet single-engine design in decades, including studying interiors of BMS and Audis for the four-place seating, and also a re-think of the controls. I have flown several, and the controls are very natural, and easy to use.

I'm hoping to get a ride in Jamie's if he comes down to Arkansas this winter to hunt ducks!