As an example of of European composites the Extra 300 is not a typical aircraft being mostly steel tube with a carbon wing that has wood ribs.
The Cirrus has the unfortunate dog tooth stuck in the front of what looked like a very clean wing and I cant see that helping to keep the weight down, the aircraft is very conservativly built and so gives away the advantage of composite construction in a lot of small ways that add up.
Origanaly the repair techniques looked like the Boeing manual from twenty years back and would have added lots of weight at any repair, fortunaly in service experiance has resulted in a much more enlightened approach to repair rather than treating the whole thing as if is was metal.
I see the SR20/22 as a very good attempt at entering a market that seen metal as the only option for aircraft, this resulted in a very conservative approach, I have no doubt that Cirrus with the lesons from the SR20/22 will be very well placed to make their next aircraft state of the art and very light.
Last edited by A and C; 12th October 2012 at 08:03.