If this were not the case GA would still have a healthy MEP and RG market.
I think the rapid decline in the MEP scene (rapid even in the short time – 13 years – I’ve been flying) has been driven by
I think the decline in the IFR market generally is the usual stuff
Why that is I am not sure
Perhaps the lower Vs of 49kt (DA40-180 or DA40-TDI) versus the 59kt of most IFR tourers, is a big factor in how many people actually get killed once they hit something hard. But the mission profile is so vastly different that I can’t see where one would even start.
Accident rates pr type, ah yes – posts on these threads quickly goes into the triple digits on COPA. 
I’ve got ~200 hrs on the DA40-180 & a small handful of hours on the SR20 & SR22.
Comparing a DA40 to an SR22 is somewhat off. One is a 180hp NA entry level IFR mid-range trainer (btw, there’s quite a few privately owned, both in Europe & the US – they’re not all trainers), the other a high performance 310hp NA/Turbo IFR tourer. However, a DA40 vs a SR20 is a much closer comparison. Both about the same range & speed, avionics, composite construction etc etc. The SR20 also see some use as trainers. As far as I’m aware, the DA40 is still ahead of the SR20 safety-wise.
Objective observations:
- As Peter pointed out, the stall speed is significantly lower on the DA40. All else being equal, this should make for a “safer” aircraft. I think this accounts for the majority of the safety delta.
- The enclosed fuel tanks of the DA40 should make the aircraft more resilient in regards to post-impact fires.
The DA40 is real docile for most maneuvers. Ailerons retain effectiveness quite far into the stall. (long wings?) I personally never had a wing drop during stalls. (though I’m sure it’s perfectly feasible) Early on, the Cirrus encountered several fatal stall & spin incidents in the pattern. Conversely you’d have to work pretty hard to spin a DA40 inadvertently.
One thing I took from a recent flight in an SR22: The plane is a real hot rod. A few seconds of inattention & you’re blasting into the pattern at 160kts. (no, I wasn’t flying at the time) I could see how an inexperienced/distracted pilot could get in way over his head in a tight situation, especially because the plane otherwise is so straightforward to handle.
Agree.
Also: I it’s pretty clear that in the 200 hp class the DA40 is the easier to fly airplane due to the much lower wing loading. While the SR20 can be somewhat dangerous in hot and high conditions the SR22 is a real hotrod compared to most GA singles, which can create other dangers for inexperienced pilots.
A few seconds of inattention & you’re blasting into the pattern at 160kts
That, surely, is the major challenge when moving up from the C150 type of level.
In a C150, you fly everywhere at 90-100kt, so if you want to land somewhere, you just … slow down a bit and land.
In an SR22, or a TB20 for that matter, you are flying everywhere at some 50-70kt more than you could ever end up on final at, so one needs to think ahead. Also those types of pilots tend to fly higher, say 5000ft instead of 1500ft, so you have to mentally solve two problems at the same time: getting down and slowing down But to extent to which this is an explanation for accidents, I don’t know, because it is in the enroute phase, and very little (in terms of pilot errors) goes wrong enroute.
the SR22 is a real hotrod compared to most GA singles
Yet, that is an extra safety factor. If you load say a PA28-161 with four modern-size men, on a 700m grass runway, it is likely to be very marginal. Whereas an SR22 will just roar out of there no matter how overloaded. I don’t see many load-related marginal-takeoff-perf accidents with SR22s.
No, load is not the problem. But I remember how i came back to my home airport for the first time after I picked up te SR22 in England … I even had the power reduced to 45 percent 15 miles out but I still arrived in the pattern with 160 KTAS … After that I started to plane my descents with the VNAV feature of the 430. But the first arrivals really made my hads sweat :-)
(I never flew my PA-28 Warrior with 3 passengers from runways under 900 m. In the summer that’s not only marginal but dangerous. No problem on cold winter days but in the summer full tanks plus 2 passengers were my limit – on the 900 m runway (2700 ft)
Energy management it the big thing that catches people even in straight wing jets like the Citation. You do see quite a few botched landings in the accident reports, usually hot and high arrivals. The lack of propellers seems to be the biggest issue, there is no braking effect when you pull the power back.
I have a theory that if everyone who wants to fly slippery types had a few hours in modern composite sailplanes the accident rates would fall. It’s the best training I ever had.
Yes, I can imagine that this would help!
When I flew the SR22 three days ago I thought "wow, I’m climbing with 1800 feet on a standard day and I still have a TAS of 120 KTAS. In my Warrior I have to start a DESCENT to get over 110! Then, when I came back from the mountains, trying to get benath Munich’s C class airspace I had a GS of 220 in a shallow descent with maybe 55 percent power (can’t remember exactly).
I didn’t take the performance THAT serious when i first bought the plane and I thought “well, okay, sure it’s much faster, but after all it’s just another piston single, will get used to the speed in a couple of hours”. Not true. It’s not a Citation, but you need A LOT MORE discipline and “thinking ahead” when you are so used to basic airplanes. In the Warrior you pull the power and it practically STANDS still …
That’s one of the great things about the Cessna RGs. As the gear extension speed is 140kts, you can slow down pretty late – the gear reliably acts as a handbrake ;-) Sure, it’s nowhere near as fast as a Cirrus, but the gear definitely helps to slow you down when needed.
Yes, of course, and the flaps are more effective than the Cirrus’ flaps too, allows even steeper angles in the final
I can’t compare the DA40 with the SR22T as I only flew the Diamond Dimona but never the DA40. I personally don’t like the looks-and-feel of the DA40 and love they way the SR22T is build and looks like. What I think is dangerous in the Cirrus SR22 is indeed its power management, being the delay between adding throttle and then waiting to get the extra speed or even worse, the other way around: reduce the throttle and wait “forever” for the airspeed to bleed off. There is no direct and immediate response as I used to get in the Piper.
Now the year is over I have again been flying quite a lot of hours this year. I can find all the knobs in the dark in the cockpit and feel quite comfortable flying it. It took me basically everywhere in Europe last year at all times (cancelled only 1 flight 2 weeks ago or so with the heavy storm on Thursday). I am quite sure I could not have made the same flights with the DA40 weren’t it for the lack of de-icing. So, for me, the DA40 cannot be compared to the SR22T.
I am seeing the CAPS/parachute as a second engine. I am not sure a twin will give me extra safety and prefer to go the CAPS option as extra security instead of the second engine. I have seen some accidents happen last year (amongst that one in Germany) where one of the 2 engines in a MEP would fail right after takeoff in IMC. That looks like a nightmare to me. In my case, in the climb only, I can pull the chute from 500 feet and higher and still have a fear opportunity to make it.
