I have been reading this ping pong session about Cirrus versus everyone else's favourite aircaft with a mixture of amusement and I have to say sadness. There is so much misinformation about the Cirrus that is being peddled. Look, these are all aircraft, each with its own idiosyncracies, plus points and negative points. Arguing about which is better is fairly senseless. Some people prefer the Mooney: and yes it is cramped, no doubt about it. No-one has mentioned its problems with the undercarriage on grass fields by the way. Retractable undercarriage: fine but not everyone wants to spend a flight worrying if at the end of the flight they are going to have trouble with lowering it. I can easily go on criticising what is in fact a very good aircraft.
As one of the first Cirrus owners in Europe (second in the UK) I have now built up a lot of experience with this aircraft, both SR20 and SR22 and I think I know most of its plusses and minusses (not sure if that is the correct spelling). I bought my first one all those years ago because it was the first aircraft to be designed on new principles as opposed to all the old-fashioned aircraft I had previously flown (very good aircraft nonetheless, such as the AA5A I had earlier). What Klapmeier did was to bring light aircraft design into the late 20th century, even into the 21st century after I dont know how many years of old fashioned and conservative technology.
Someone said it was difficult to land in a cross-wind: utter nonsense - it has a max demo of 21 kts, but I have easily landed it in 35 kts 90 degrees across the runway. No problem. Someone also wrote something about not pulling the throttle back fast : why not? I have never had any problem with this. Then also I read that we do not do PFL's. True in my case, but that is sheer laziness on my part (I admit it) and I really ought to make a New year's resolution to do that more -- but there is no problem about doiing PFL's.
Build finish? Sometime a little poor sometimes fine. I am not impressed with the finish quality of most light aircraft that I have seen, especially when compared with cars. Take a look sometimes in a paint shop when they have stripped off the paint from an all metal aircraft and see how much corrosion there is.
If you really, really want to criticise a Cirrus I will give you one idea. It is a s-d to get to the tire valves to fill up with air.
Oh, and as for running costs, let me give you my experience of fuel usage. On the SR20 I used to use flying LOP at a TAS of 145kts 9.2 gals per hour. On my SR22 I get a LOP TAS of about 168kts at a flow rate of 15 gals per hour. These figures do depend on altitude but they are what I have used in flight planning perfectly satisfactorily are typical of altitudes up to say 6000 feet. If you fly at 10000 feet then the fuel consumption in my SR22 typically goes down to 13.5 gph for the same TAS.
Finally the side stick. Great. Put the aircraft on autopilot (by the way the aircraft is superbly stable when not on the AP - it doesnt drop a wing on you) and you have plenty of space in front of you to read a newspaper, play cards or work away on your laptop, or join the mile high club. I suppose you do have to look outside from time to time though just to be safe!