I am reliably informed that the inability for FIKI certification of the Columbia and Cirrus rests with their (ugly) fixed gear.
It accumulates ice fast and gets heavy and draggy.
You often hear of pilots describing loss of antennae and aerials after an icing encounter. Any protruberances freeze up fast.
For what it's worth, I would take a Mooney with TKS (same system as in the Hawker jet) over anything else out there. It wins in terms of systems redundancy, speed, (massively in terms of) efficiency, range and general ruggedness. Radar would be nice in addition to a stormscope for crossing fronts, but even my non-turbocharged Ovation 2 can get up to FL200 at max gross without too many problems. On one occasion in the last 12 months having a ceiling of FL250 (turbonormalised Acclaim) would have allowed me to slide over the top of a nasty front (dodging around the CBs
that were going up much higher) but only one occasion. I landed and spent the night in a hotel completing the journey the next morning.
Mooney have slowed production as have most other manufacturers, in anticipation of a tough year or two.
Unlike Cirrus and Diamond, Mooney have been through tough times before and survived - they will no doubt do the same again. The workforce will go back to their homes in Kerville and wait for things to get better. It has happen many times in the past.
Cirrus have massive advertising and marketing investments which they need to rationalise fast, I am certain that capacity will reduce to match market demand. As there will always be people out there who want a plastic parachute equiped car for the sky rather than a plane they will no doubt be fine.
Not sure about Diamond though - their problems are far more fundamental with the powerplant as well as the downturn. I hope they make it.
Eclipse is such a breakthrough product that someone will buy it and take it on even if is fails under the current ownership - it will not go away - the technology is just too good.
SB