New to this year’s Plane & Pilot Buyer’s Guide are a couple of airplanes that are major updates of existing singles, as well as an all-new, newly Part 23-certificated model by CubCrafters. The product that continues to dominate the market is the Cirrus SR22 G6, which this year boasts its best panel yet, the updated G1000 NXi. Despite relatively low levels of sales against historic figures, the number of different options for potential buyers of singles remains impressive. You can get anything from a 120-knot taildragger with big tires to a pressurized six-place screamer, and most everything else in between. Here’s our selection of the leading piston singles on the market.
Piper M350
Few groundbreaking airplanes stand the test of time, and the M350, known previously as the Mirage and before that the Malibu, is one of them. The pressurized piston single is fast, roomy (seats for six including club seating in back), and because it’s pressurized, occupants don’t need cannula or oxygen masks in the flight levels. Its tremendous range and weather-ready equipment make it the world’s most advanced piston single, one with much of the capability of turboprop singles, but at a cool million less. Its G1000 avionics suite boasts safety features like synthetic vision, envelope protection and a hypoxia safety mode. The M350 has onboard weather radar, anti-icing pneumatic boots for full flight into known icing capability, and with a ceiling of 25,000 feet, it can navigate weather more effectively and effortlessly (for pilot and passengers) than any other production piston single.
Niche: Pressurized piston retractable gear
Price: $1.15 million
Competitors: None
Read our Piper M350 pilot report.
Learn more at Piper Aircraft.
