Purdue Ponies Up for 16 New Cirrus SR20s

Earlier this week, Cirrus Aircraft announced that Purdue University's Department of Aviation Technology agreed to purchase 16 new SR20s. Deliveries will begin in March and all 16 are expected to arrive by the end of July, replacing the program's current fleet of Piper Warriors. One issue cited in the university's decision to choose Cirrus was commonality between the avionics package in the new trainers (Cirrus Perspective by Garmin) and the avionics in the Embraer Phenom 100s, part of the university's training and research fleet. The Aviation Technology department at Purdue has some 600 students enrolled. Dr. Brent Bowen, head of the department, said, "Our investment in Cirrus and the resulting technologies will provide us with data acquisition and flight training capability never before possible and allow us to advance aviation education to a new level."