At Oshkosh in 1995, a little-known company by the name of Cirrus Design arrived with a slick plastic composite airplane that it audaciously claimed would be the future of general aviation. To stoke the hyperbole, a series of high-profile ads in major aviation magazines featured the airplane mysteriously shrouded in a dimly lit “Hangar X.” All would be revealed at OSH.

And so it was. Although Cirrus didn’t quite deliver on its speed claims and the price of the airplane has escalated a bit, even cynics will concede that the company made good on its tall claim: Cirrus has turned out to be the future of general aviation, as the company…