Ah the insurance, I didn't realise that was still troubling you.
I don't know the whole answer but her is a go.
The rumor was that in the early days the accident rate in Cirrus was higher than the average. Now we all know that insurance is based on risk assessment (and perhaps despite my earlier comment to a smaller degree risk perception). There was a also a fair amount of talk (which as we have seen is still popular of all these pilots jumping into Cirrus with the money but without the experience. Doubtless to some degree this did contribute to the accidents.
All Cirrus were high value aircraft (because most were almost new) whereas a pilot could equally "jump into" a Mooney with a hull value of less than a third.
There is no doubt the Cirrus is not the ideal aircraft for a low time pilot. Even now glass is still relatively new and takes some getting accustom to. The aircraft is fast (as SEPs go) and slippery. Its easy to end up hot and high. It really does take some pilots a while to master a Cirrus and feel comfortable.
Then there is the question of high time, highly experienced pilots. Well even that doesn't always wash. The skill set for flying a commercial jet is quite different; there are plenty of commercial pilots who have long since flown a performance SEP. In fact even for these pilots the transition is not a complete walk in the park. Just ask (as I have) for them to demonstrate a PFL or a half reasonable landing in a good cross wind. I might even add that many dont do that good a job of single pilot ops be it coping with airspace outside the system (which they have long forgotten) or flying IFR without the co-pilot managing a goodly proportion of the exercise. Is it not still the case that single pilot IFR ops is one of the hardest things we do?
So there are plenty of reasons when the 'phones rings the conversation is along these lines;
I want some insurance for a Cirrus, on the cheap mind you,
Well, Sir whats the value,
Oh I don't know I guess £300K, its not mine you see
ah yes, I do see, Sir, and how many hours do you have,
Oh 10,000 I am a training captain you know,
Yeees, Sir I thought you might be, but how many hours on a SEP,
Oh, well couple of hundred,
and when would that have been Sir,
Hmmm, four years ago (if you are lucky), but what does it matter?
and so you have flown with an Avidyne glass cockpit before,
Well no .. .. .. but,
and how many hours are you intending to fly a year,
Well, I only want to do a dozen or so, the girlfriend was thinking of a quick jolly down to Venice next week, I go there all the time for the company you know.
Ah yes, I see so lets just sum this up, you havent flown a SEP in over three years, you have never flown an Avidyne glass cockpit, you probably are only going to be flying once a month, the aircraft is worth around £300K and you think because of your hours you will be OK doing a tour of Europe next week on the strength of your multi IR on a BoAir69. Now let me see, yes we can give you a good cheap deal .. .. .. ..
