cirrus aircraft

I ferried a Cirrus 20 from Charlotte NC to San Diego and really enjoyed
it....learing to use the side yoke was not as difficult as I had thought.

I will say I used the autopilot almost all the time (except of course for
take-off and landing). If not for the autopilot, I suspect my forearm would
have been killiing me after about 4 hours.

A left handed tennis player with strong forearms would definately have an
advantage here....lol

Bob
Charlotte NC
ATP CFI CFII MEI
HS-125 Typed


"Morgans" wrote in message
...

"John Godwin" wrote

Initially, I found it to be overly sensitive and I even had a little
problem flying straight-and-level. After practice, it's quite
comfortable to fly and requires much less motion to maneuver the plane.
I don't use two hands on flights control anyway.

What about flying long flights? It would seem to me that not being able
to
switch hands, would mean a very tired left hand.
--
Jim in NC

"Morgans" wrote in message
...

"Kyle Boatright" wrote

Naah. I fly 3 and 4 hour legs in the RV without any hand/arm fatigue.
Or
maybe I'm so focused on derrierre' and bladder fatigue I don't notice.

That is a center stick though, right? You can switch hands, and rest your
forearm on your leg, right?
--
Jim in NC

You're right about the center stick, but I only switch hands to mess with
the radio. One thing may be that the control pressures and throws on the RV
are very small in straight and level flight, so there simply isn't enough
effort involved to cause fatigue.

KB

"Ron Garret" wrote

The Cirrus has an electric trim. I find it's all but impossible to get
fine enough control to really get the thing trimmed up properly at high
speed; it's just too twitchy. But the Cirrus also has an autopilot,
which more than makes up for the twitchy trim.

Thanks; a reply that I can use. ;^)

So the auto makes it possible. What if the auto was not working, or you
just needed (or wanted) the stick time? Would it be reasonable to fly 2
hours without your hand getting overly tired?
--
Jim in NC

"Dan Luke" wrote

That's a good time to use that autopilot thing.

To tell the truth, I forgot that there was an auto pilot thing, in this one.
;^)

What if auto pilot thing was not working?

(sorry for being argumentative, but I am curious by nature)
--
Jim in NC

"Kyle Boatright" wrote

Naah. I fly 3 and 4 hour legs in the RV without any hand/arm fatigue. Or
maybe I'm so focused on derrierre' and bladder fatigue I don't notice.

That is a center stick though, right? You can switch hands, and rest your
forearm on your leg, right?
--
Jim in NC

In article ,
"Morgans" wrote:

"Ron Garret" wrote

The Cirrus has an electric trim. I find it's all but impossible to get
fine enough control to really get the thing trimmed up properly at high
speed; it's just too twitchy. But the Cirrus also has an autopilot,
which more than makes up for the twitchy trim.

Thanks; a reply that I can use. ;^)

So the auto makes it possible. What if the auto was not working, or you
just needed (or wanted) the stick time? Would it be reasonable to fly 2
hours without your hand getting overly tired?

Well, I'm just heading out to the airport now. I'll let you know in
about three hours :-)

rg

In article ,
Ron Garret wrote:

In article ,
"Morgans" wrote:

"Ron Garret" wrote

The Cirrus has an electric trim. I find it's all but impossible to get
fine enough control to really get the thing trimmed up properly at high
speed; it's just too twitchy. But the Cirrus also has an autopilot,
which more than makes up for the twitchy trim.

Thanks; a reply that I can use. ;^)

So the auto makes it possible. What if the auto was not working, or you
just needed (or wanted) the stick time? Would it be reasonable to fly 2
hours without your hand getting overly tired?

Well, I'm just heading out to the airport now. I'll let you know in
about three hours :-)

Well, I just got back from flying sans autopilot for about an hour. My
conclusions are that 1) it can be done but 2) it's a pain in the ass.
The biggest problem is not your hand getting tired, it's trying to keep
the damn thing in trim. The roll trim is (thankfully) much less of a
problem than the pitch trim. I was able to fly hands-off the roll for
many minutes at a time. But the best I could do in pitch was 20-40 FPM
climb or descent at speed in calm air. When I hit up or down drafts
things got much worse, and at one point I lost 500 feet in (I estimate)
10-15 seconds while I was fiddling with the radios. But YMMV. I tend
to fly with the AP on by default in cruise. If you fly with it off most
of the time you might get better at trimming it than I am.

Slowing down helps a lot. It's vastly easier to keep things under
control at 120 KIAS then at 175 KIAS, but then the downside is obviously
that it takes that much longer to get where you're going. The good news
is that hand-flying approaches is quite doable, since you're not going
to be flying those at 175 KIAS anyway.

Personally, if I ever lose the autopilot in IMC I'm probably diverting
to the nearest airport immediately.

rg

"Ron Garret" wrote

Well, I'm just heading out to the airport now. I'll let you know in
about three hours :-)

No cheating by using the auto-pilot, - right? g
--
Jim in NC

"Morgans" wrote:

That's a good time to use that autopilot thing.

To tell the truth, I forgot that there was an auto pilot thing, in
this one.
;^)

What if auto pilot thing was not working?

Then your left wrist gets a healthful workout on the flight to the
repair station.

--
Dan
C172RG at BFM

Ron Garret wrote:

Personally, if I ever lose the autopilot in IMC I'm probably diverting
to the nearest airport immediately.


That stikes me as an interesting comment, coming from a 172 owner
unable to afford to have George do the flying. Would people say that's
typical of Mooney 201/Bonanza and other planes of a similar class to
the SR series?

-cwk.