Upside down
The cirrus perspective overturns many of aviation's long held beliefs, practices and traditions. As Cubdriver mentioned it is very difficult to simulate system failures. There seems to be a back up for everything. There is no ADF. During unusual attitudes there is a button that automatically levels the plane. The synthetic vision makes attitude instrument flying a snap.
Things like whiskey compass turns and 500 FPM climbs seem ridiculous in the cirrus. I suppose that you just have to give in to the automation. Someone at the airport criticized the Cirrus as an IFR platform since it is a single engine however with the ballistic chute and airbags it changes the game. I think that I would feel safer in the Cirrus than in a Barron when flying over the cascades at night.
The automation is over powering but when properly harnessed the plane is capable of almost anything. As far as I can determine the autopilot can be on throughout the entire instrument check ride except for one non-precision approach that must be hand flown. However you can still use the flight director.
A half a million bucks is a lot of cash to blow on a plane however when a new Barron is 1.2 million it seems like a great deal. I told my student that once he gets his rating if he were to try and fly his fathers Cherokee under IFR he would probably kill himself.
Like modern airline wonder kids it will be very difficult to impossible for my student to be able to develop real old fashioned steam gauge attitude instrument skills. However when the future belongs to planes like the perspective who cares?
Skyhigh