Cirrus Aircraft

Aircraft Manufacturer

At a glance

Models: 5
In production: 4
Cruise: 139–317 kt
Power: Piston • Turbofan

Overview

Cirrus Aircraft is the Duluth, Minnesota builder of the SR-series composite singles and the Vision Jet, and the world’s largest producer of piston-powered aircraft. Founded as Cirrus Design Corporation in 1984 by brothers Alan and Dale Klapmeier, it certified its first aircraft, the SR20, in 1998 – the first production general-aviation airplane delivered with a whole-airframe parachute as standard. The line today runs from the entry SR20 through the SR22 and turbocharged SR22T to the single-engine Vision SF50 personal jet, all sharing the same carbon-fiber airframe, side-stick control, and glass cockpit.

Heritage

The Klapmeier brothers started Cirrus in 1984 in Baraboo, Wisconsin, first building the VK-30, a kit-built composite single, before committing to factory-built, type-certificated aircraft. The SR20 earned its FAA type certificate in 1998, the more powerful SR22 followed in 2000, and the turbocharged SR22T arrived in 2010; the SR22 went on to become the best-selling single-engine piston aircraft year after year. In 2011 the company was acquired by China Aviation Industry General Aircraft (CAIGA), a subsidiary of the Aviation Industry Corporation of China, whose backing funded the Vision SF50 – certified in 2016 as the first single-engine civilian jet to reach production. Cirrus keeps its headquarters and final assembly in Duluth, Minnesota, with additional manufacturing in Grand Forks, North Dakota, and a customer Vision Center in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Design Signature

Every Cirrus is built around the Cirrus Airframe Parachute System (CAPS), a whole-airframe ballistic parachute that lowers the entire aircraft under canopy – a feature the company made standard from the SR20 onward and later carried into the Vision Jet. The airframes are molded carbon-fiber composite rather than riveted aluminum, flown through a side-stick rather than a yoke, and fitted with the Cirrus Perspective glass cockpit built on Garmin avionics. Where rivals competed on speed or price, Cirrus competed on the integration of safety systems, cabin comfort, and panel automation, a formula that carried unchanged from the piston singles up into the personal jet.

For Owners

Cirrus is in full production and supports one of the most active owner communities in general aviation, anchored by its factory training and the Cirrus Owners and Pilots Association. The SR-series runs on mainstream Continental and Lycoming engines that any shop can service, and the company’s factory network and embedded avionics keep parts and software well supported. The defining ownership cost is CAPS itself: the parachute requires a scheduled repack and rocket-motor replacement roughly every ten years, a five-figure event that is part of owning any Cirrus and should be budgeted from the start.

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