Aircraft Optimized For Northern Latitudes
04.01.06
'Special' Edition: After a whole lifetime of living in the
snowbound North Central US, the Klapmeier brothers have finally
introduced an airplane for the winter conditions in their home
stomping grounds (as in stomping your feet to try to get
circulation back), Minnesota and Wisconsin.
Integrated Snowplow
The first thing you notice about the SP is its three integrated
snowplows. They're modeled on the gigantic plows used in the 19th
and 20th Centuries on the great railway lines of the north and
west, "only much smaller," said company visionary Alan
Klapmeier.
"It's all part of our vision of safety through innovation,"
brother Dale, who was recently named to the newly created title of
Cirrus Curmudgeon, said. The aircraft clears its own runway, making
concern over snow-contaminated runways a thing of the past.
"The best thing is that, because we found that the plows added
five percent drag in powder and nine percent in packed, wet snow,
Alan finally gave me the go-ahead to add a little more power." The
SP's unique four-bladed prop is driven by an innovative IO-720-TDT
which contains twin dual turbochargers. "Each cylinder bank has one
great big turbo to cram it full of air, and one little one to spin
up fast so you don't notice the turbo lag of the big one," he said.
"I'm not really sure what the rate of climb is. I was supposed to
trip the stopwatch at 20,000 feet but I was trying to stop the
nosebleed and missed my hack."
"You can make a buck by renting it out to clear taxiways and
ramps, too... as long as you don't rent it 'wet,' which could be
financially ruinous."
"And you don't need to use the snowplows, actually. Just taxi to
the end of the ramp and run it up to 1900 RPM in coarse pitch, and
you'll clear the snow from the ramp behind you, and the grass
beyond. We were running it up to 2100, but that erodes too much of
the topsoil, and a smart aleck in Twin Cities Approach keeps
cautioning 757s about our wake turbulence."
IKEA Interior, Fisher Plow
While the other Cirrus models' Lexus-like interior has been
universally praised, the SP has had a complete overhaul by the
Danish furniture giant IKEA.
While Cirrus came up with the idea for the snowplow, they didn't
think there was any percentage in reinventing the wheel, or the
blade, in this case. They worked closely with snowplow experts
Fisher Engineering for a (or three) scaled-down copy of the Fisher
EZ-V plow. The EZ controls are permanently installed in the cabin,
but the plows themselves are removable by the pilot "in less than
two minutes... just like our truck plows," a Fisher spokesman said.
"This is our first aircraft product, but it won't be our last."
Options and Prices
The SP doesn't come cheap -- the SP22 version begins at over
$389,000 and the IO-720-TDT powered SP24, which is expected to
garner the bulk of the sales, begins at over $469,000. And that's
before you add popular options like the heated alpaca-fur seats,
ice-prevention equipment and a wood-burning Jotul preheater. But
seven SPs were ordered the very day of the announcement.
"I plan to put one on
leaseback at International Falls, yah," said Ole Svensson. "I
reckon she can pay for herself, she can."
"Oh, yah," his cousin Sven Olsson agreed.
"We've been needing this plane for a long time." Sven especially
likes the wolves-fur trim on the canopy of the Cirrus Airframe
Parachute System. "Yah, for survival, if you come down in a
wasteland like Yukon Territory or Hollywood. Plus, anything that
thins out the wolves is good for the elk, yah."
Opposition Rises, Too
Not everyone is a fan of the new SP. In Madison, a spokeshuman
("that's the term we use, live with it") for Students for
Sustainable Protest was quick to condemn the new Cirrus. "It like,
digs up the snow that like Gaia laid down, and that's a... what do
we call it... bummer, dude. Like, grooves in the snow are not
groovy. Dig? And it burns fossil fuel. How does that make the poor
fossils feel?" The spokeshuman indicated, though, that Students for
Sustainable Protest would not protest in Cirrus's home base,
Duluth. "There all totally square up there, and there's, like, no
good weed." Asked to describe the membership of SfSP, the
spokeshuman said the organization comprised "two or three students,
and about all us professors."
The SPs feature custom graphics of diagonal yellow and black
stripes, and extra flashing yellow strobes.