PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Calling all DA40 XL and Cirrus SR22 owners
Old 26th Nov 2008, 21:58
  #14 (permalink)  
Fuji Abound
 
Join Date: May 2001
Location: UK
Posts: 4,631
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
No, of course the Cirrus is not de-iced, but it does have full wet coverage of all flying surfaces. In fact the same layout as the 42 which they got certified - the only difference being you will get around a third of the run time due to the smaller fluid reservoir.

It will be interesting to see how they last. You are also correct that there is some external furniture subject to corrosion - although not much - why manufacturers want to fit bright work these days I dont know - it harks back to the golden age of cars I suppose with oodles of chrome.

You could compare airframes with boats. Wooden boats have been around for years. If you keep them painted and varnished they last forever - but, and it is a big but, if you dont the cost of rectification can be substantial. Aircraft are the same -allow corrosion to develop and it is a costly business to put it right. Plastic boats on the other hand do seem to last forever, although in the early days there were plenty of structural and gel coat problems (and of course osmosis, hopefully not relevant to aircraft). I wonder which one of these will befall plastic tastic airframes?
Fuji Abound is offline