It was an easy call. Whenever someone asked which piston-powered airplane would be the first to feature Garmin’s Emergency Autoland as standard, my answer was always the Cirrus SR series. Having flown every version of the SR20 and SR22 since the late 1990s, one thing is clear: Cirrus has been on a quest to make these airplanes incrementally better with every update.
And no matter what you think of the current airplane’s eye-watering price tag, it’s tough to argue that the latest 2025 SR G7+ isn’t the best version yet. With Garmin’s Autoland (Cirrus calls it Safe Return), smarter avionics that make it nearly impossible to commit a runway incursion or run out of fuel, plus redesigned interior appointments and ergonomics that cater to pilots and passengers, buyers get bragging rights to the safest and most capable single-engine piston airplane on the market.
