Cirrus
SR20
Photo: Robert Deering 3/30/2010
Henderson Executive Airport (HND)
Henderson, Nevada

SR20

SR22

Vision

The Cirrus Aircraft Corporation is an aircraft manufacturer that was founded in 1984 by Alan and Dale Klapmeier to produce the VK-30 kit aircraft. The company headquarters is located in Duluth, Minnesota, United States.

The company is currently owned by China Aviation Industry General Aircraft (CAIGA), itself majority owned by Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC), which is in turn wholly owned by the Government of the People's Republic of China.

The company markets several versions of its three certificated models, the SR20, SR22 and SR22T. The company was planning to market a light-sport aircraft, the Cirrus SR Sport, but suspended the project in 2009 due to costs and lack of market demand. This has since been cancelled.

Cirrus Aircraft has its headquarters and main manufacturing facility in Duluth, Minnesota. An additional manufacturing facility is located in Grand Forks, North Dakota. The Grand Forks facility is owned by the city of Grand Forks and leased to the company.  It has provided work for as many as 330 employees, but as of May 2013 employed approximately 90 people.

Products

SR aircraft series

Cirrus SR (Single Reciprocating) Series aircraft are designed around composite technologies with Cirrus Perspective by Garmin digital flight displays and modern avionics as standard equipment. The aircraft are all electric - no vacuum systems are used. Redundancy is provided by dual batteries and alternators. The SR22 is also available with TKS anti-icing equipment which enables flight into known icing conditions.

The aircraft incorporate other unsual design elements. All Cirrus aircraft use a mechanical side yoke instead of the traditional yoke or stick flight controls. The aircraft also use a single power lever that adjusts both throttle and propeller RPM via a mechanical cam actuated throttle and propeller control system. Construction is dominated by the use of composite materials, although traditional aluminum is used for flight control surfaces.

The Cirrus SR22T is powered by a Continental TSIO-550-K turbocharged engine. Turbocharging allows the engine to maintain maximum power at higher altitudes while increasing the maximum operating altitude to 25,000'.

Cirrus Airframe Parachute System (CAPS)

The Cirrus SR series (SRV, SR20 and SR22) aircraft are equipped with the Cirrus Airframe Parachute System (CAPS), developed by Ballistic Recovery Systems, a ballistic parachute deployed from the back of the aircraft. In many emergencies, the system allows the entire aircraft to descend safely and has been credited with saving 65 lives. Cirrus was the first manufacturer to receive FAA certification for production aircraft with ballistic parachute systems. The parachute system was accepted by the Federal Aviation Administration as an equivalent level of safety and complete spin testing was not required by the FAA.

Source: Wikipedia