....and another thing, don't give me that "I like to break the journey up and stop for lunch in Cannes" nonsense, Fuji.
I can guarantee you that is what I do and it has nothing to do with the aircraft. The 42 I fly has the supplementary tanks and I can also guarantee you if it is a p***ing contest I can go a lot further than you, but I dont.
As always horses for ..
For me I just get a bit bored with anything over three hours and I really enjoy stopping off somewhere - perhaps that is why my belly is too big and yours is small.
With regards the u/c I think it has been well published that Cirrus went this route to contain the insurance cost in the US. Whether we agree or not the insurance market is driven by risk and clearly the risk to the insurers of a retractable is higher because you can guarantee at some point it will get stuck or the pilot will forget to check for three greens. You only need to make that mistake once or for it to stick once and you have negated the fuel you may have saved a few hundred times over. Moreover some see the ballistic chute as an important advance in safety but the chute will not work well without the u/c absorbing some of the load. Sure you could run the u/c before or after pulling the chute but that introduces another element of risk.
Once again its a compromise. Mooney and Mooney pilots see it differently and good for them but like it or note to survive in this business you have to sell aircaft. That means you have to do a good job advertising your product, but you also have to make a product that has market appeal.
All the time Cirrus are still rolling aircraft off the production line and selling them and Mooney have stopped rolling anything off the production line I have to say in the real world Cirrus have it about right and Mooney have it horribly wrong - because as good as the aircraft might be if you are not building them, no one is going to know.