Slightly off topic but I was speaking with a pilot who has flown a Columbus 400 and was completely blown away by the aircraft. He said that the handling was delicious and the speed amazing a far superior aircraft to the Cirrus.
Yet the aircraft does not attract the sales! Maybe the selling point with the Cirrus is the chute system?
Odd unless there are technical reasons why the Columbus is not also fitted with a chute system?
How does that fair on insurance requirements?
If you are worried that the insurance requirements are not "real" I suggest that you ask to see the aircraft insurance certificate which should be viewed on first check flight, this will clearly show the insurance requirements.
I am sure the requirements are real but the insurance on any aircraft can be bought down by agreeing to include restrictions on the pilots who fly it!
For instance if you ran a group Seneca twin and told the insurance that you were happy to limit use of the twin to only pilots with a CPL and 500 twin hours it would be far cheaper than saying you wanted PPLs with 20 twin hours to fly.
Insurance can be used to manipulate an effect although I was not for one minute suggesting that was the case with the group I was looking at.
Pace