Trip report: Cirrus SR-22 demo flight

Last year at SnF I stopped by the Cirrus booth and indicated interest in the Cirrus, leading to an offer of a demo flight. Scheduling problems prevented this from actually happening for over a year, but today the wait paid off.

A cold front had come through yesterday, bringing rain, mist, low clouds, and such, but the sun rose today over a pristine and cloudless sky. Pretty soon some puffies started forming, but a weather briefing indicated that they would be up around four to five thousand feet, with a higher layer at about eight. Clear above. With light breezes and a nice fall day ahead, I headed off to Danbury to meet Mark Bennett, who would take me on the demo.

We were to meet at one pm. I got there a bit early, and he had gone to have lunch, so I did a little bit of a walkaround (or more of a gawkaround, since it wasn't my airplane). It has a castering nosewheel, and a three bladed prop with what appeared to be a glycol dispenser near the hub for each blade. The prop had what looked like de-ice boots on the inner part, but I later found that they are just channels for the de-ice fluid to follow. I suppose they could have been carved into the prop just as easily, but it probably would have been harder to do it that way. Wings and fuselage are composite, but the control surfaces are metal. Fit and finish is quite impressive. The wing and horizontal stablizer leading edges appeared to be smooth aluminum with a mesh of teeny holes. De-ice again, which is a good thing to have in the Northeast - if you are going to get a high performance airplane to go places and end up grounded for half the winter, why bother!

There is a discontinuity by the leading edge of the wing, about halfway out. I later found that this is so that the outer part could have a different angle of attack, and therefore stall last. I was surprised that they did it this way rather than with a smoothly varying curve, which composite construction ought to allow. Near the tail is a placard saying something like "Warning - rocket parachute - stay clear when aircraft is occupied." Puzzling that it's all the way in the back. It turns out that that's where the BRS is kept, and when deployed, the fuselage unzips so that the shroud lines, some of which are connected to the nose, can deploy properly. I bet the rocket hurts too if you're too close.

The baggage compartment opens with a key. It appears you can't leave it "unlocked". There is no yoke - it is a side stick. Instead of the usual instruments, there are two TV screens big enough to show the game between the Yankees and the Knicks, but since I'm not a football fan, I think I'd opt to have them show flight information. The cockpit is quite wide, with dark brown leather upholstry, a reasonable imitation of a five point restraint system, and (just a minute, I have to wipe this drool off the airplane).
http://www.flying20club.org/Jose/cfrom_P9200003.JPG (35K)
http://www.flying20club.org/Jose/from_P9200003.JPG (282K)

Here he comes. I've brought my flight bag and headset; he says that it won't be needed. I bring it anyway - I'm still from the old school (but I know what he means). We do a regular preflight; I do mine in three stages - first is electrical. On with the master, down with the flaps, and all the lights work. There is no tail light - just the wing lights and strobes. And a landing light, of course. There is an electrical stall warning, but I can't find it. He lets me keep looking, and eventually he points it out - a 1/8 inch hole in the leading edge of the wing, which is impractical to test, although some people blow into it. He claimed it worked on his landing at Danbury, and that's good enough for me. At least for this flight.

Next, fluids. Oil is good, but the first drain of gas shows lots of what appear to be little white fibers. I drain a few more times and eventually get clean samples. The gas tanks (in the wings) are made of composite, presumably the same stuff the wings are made of, and I bet this is somehow coming from the inside of the tank. There are two drains for each wing, and one gascolator sump. We also check the de-ice fluid. It's a bit hard to see in the de-ice tank because of the sun, but it appears to be empty, so we'll stay out of the ice. Not too difficult, as it's a beautiful fall day. The next part of the preflight is the mechanical stuff. Somewhere during my preflight I climb up onto the wing to get something in the cabin, and (as I often do in the cherokees I fly) knelt down on part of the seat cushion. Bang! Ouch!

Every airplane has teeth, and I just found the jaws of the Cirrus. There is a lip where the wing joins the fuselage at the door, and this particular one is much higher than the Cherokee's, probably to store the BRS shroud lines. My shin will remember this for a long time! Anyway, as I continue the preflight, the Cirrus takes another nip at me. Under the wing where the flaps attach, there is a long thin fairing which descends well below the wing, just waiting for the skull of an errant pilot. That's another mistake I won't make again!

Suitably satisfied that the airplane will fly, we climb in, and the first thing Mark mentions is that, unlike most little airplane doors, these gull doors should be slammed shut. He demonstrates on his. Whumph! Ok, I can do that. Whumph!

Don't do =that= in a Cherokee!

We start the engine; the procedure is similar to any other fuel injected engine. The power lever (and the mixture control) are located between the pilot and copilot, and very much resemble a gear shift lever in a car. It's actually a very natural position for those controls. The plane comes with Bose headsets; they are impressive - quiet and comfortable. I can see why people rave about them. The airplane itself is quite noisy without them, but it's a smooth noise, and the engine is smooth. Once the fan is turning, Mark goes over the glass cockpit with me. There is a wealth of information on those two screens, and there are many buttons along the side that make navigation easy. The screens are huge. I mean HUGE.
http://www.flying20club.org/Jose/cfrom_P9200004.JPG (37K)
http://www.flying20club.org/Jose/from_P9200004.JPG (290K)
I used to work on a Mac, the original Mac, the one that can be converted into fish tanks. These are the one piece ones with the (must be) six inch black and white screens. You get used to anything, and I was used to that, but I needed to do some laser printing (back in the days when it was exotic) and went to an outside service to do this. They had a twenty inch screen, and after using it, coming back to "my" Mac felt like using a toy computer. Well, these are big screens. But, it will take some getting used to. I've never flown glass before, and the information is not always where I expect it, nor is it differentiated visually the way I'm used to seeing. A tape is a tape. Of course, a dial is a dial, but I think there are more differences between dials than between tapes.

On the other screen is the moving map, or the approach plates, or the engine monitor, or the checklist, or the terrain indicator, or the weather map (there wasn't any weather to see today), or any number of other things. I didn't ask about the ball game.

Taxiing out it's important to watch the wings, which are slender and longer than the Cherokees I'm used to. In the runup area we go throught the (built in) checklist, flipping back and forth between it and the engine monitor screen, and are soon ready to take off. Our objective was to "go somewhere" to get the feeling of travelling in this airplane, do some airwork, do some instrument approaches, and do some landings, so we picked Groton as our destination. Ready to go, I line us up on runway 26, and smoothly apply power. Somewhere around seventy or eighty knots, slight backpressure on the stick and we've left the confines of the earth, heading skyward. Lower the nose a bit to climb at a higher airspeed, up with the flaps (the Cirrus takes off with half flaps), and we're crossing pattern altitude before we know it. Left downwind departure, and the five thousand foot layer of beautiful puffy clouds is arrayed before us. Where we're going is a nice hole, and we watch th
e clouds slide by us as we climb up to almost two miles. The airplane handles very smoothly and I am especially impressed by the visibility, although it's a little limited in the direction of bank. Probably no more so than in the Cherokee though.

It's smooth up at this altitude, with the broken cumulus below us. I don't usually climb this high, but once settled in, we reach a ground speed of over 200 knots. There's a little help from the wind, but the plane is doing about 180 knots true. There's no propeller pitch lever; all engine operations are done by percent power, and the computer figures everything out. Leaning is easy too - set up the lean finder and watch the bars on the engine monitor as you slowly pull back the mixture. You'll see each individual cylinder reach its peak and turn blue, and when the last one peaks, richen the mixture 65 degrees. The computer even tells you when you have best power, best economy, or the best tacos west of the east. For a first time glass pilot this takes some eyeball time, but Mark tells me it becomes second nature.

The clouds drop away and Block Island, Long Island, and the Connecticut shore all present themselves to me in the High Resolution Wraparound Plexiglass Display (HRWPD, which is the same kind of display used in all the other small aircraft I've flown). Somehow, it just looks better today. Maybe it's the gorgeous clear day, maybe it's the higher altitude, maybe it's the thought that I'm having more fun flying this Cirrus, or for that matter, just flying, than most of the people in the world will ever have.

The controls have a different feel to them. On most aircraft I've flown, the feedback is from the aerodynamic forces on the control surfaces. On this aircraft, it is from internal springs or bungees that center the control stick, much like a standard game joystick. You trim the forces away, but I think that moves some gizmo that moves the springs. It's not like the aerodynamic feedback I'm used to.

On the right hand screen we pick up the METARs and TAFs for our destination, call approach to negotiate a practice ILS, and start down. I do some slow flight on the way down, pulling the power back and putting in the flaps. First notch (well, it's an electric switch that has two settings - half and full - they aren't called notches) comes in at 120 knots, and full flaps when we're slowed down to something like ninety. Keep pulling the power back and trimming. The Cirrus uses electric trim - there's a thumb control on the sidestick. It has aleron and elevator trim, but no rudder trim. There's no manual backup, and the electric trim is quite sensitive. Normally I prefer manual trim, but I find the electric trim to be quite nice. I get the aircraft down to something around sixty knots, and the nose starts bobbing quite a bit. Stall, droop, stall, droop. We do this for a little while, and then I try again, this time controlling the pitch more actively. I can reduce th
e oscillations, but now it doesn't want to fly straight - I need to control the roll axis too. Perhaps I'm going slower now, but this isn't really a test pilot flight and I'm not recording the data. Add power, pull back the flaps, and set up for the approach. I do notice that the control forces do not get lighter and sloppier the same way that they would in the Cherokee. It's that bungee thing again, no doubt.

My charts are in the back, but no matter, they are all in the computer. Click, click, and the approach plate is up on the right hand screen, along with a little airplane showing where I am on the plate, and the course lines. The approach is also shown on the moving map, including the holds and waypoints. There are several views of the chart, and soon one of the disadvantages (to me) of the glass cockpit becomes apparant. I wear bifocals, sort of. That is, I need them but I wear glasses that have one lens set for distant vision, and the other is a bifocal set for distant and middle vision. The split in that lens is unusually low, as it's there only so I can see my charts on my lap. Well, these charts are not on my lap - they are right in front of me! So, I'll need to re-think my spectacle situation, lest I become a spectacle myself. I can see the screens well enough however, and I go to don my hood.

"Your airplane". I pull the hood out of my case. Well, actually Mike gets my case (since the back seat is too far back for me to reach - did I say this was a =big= four place?) and I put it on. Mike is amused - it is a cardboard replica of an old Jepp (branded) folding plastic hood that I absolutely love, but which was stolen many years ago. It fit better than any hood I've ever used, it folds, and this new version is cheap. Nothing like flying a half-million dollar airplane with a hand made cardboard hood on my head!

We're given vectors and cleared for the approach, and I start out well enough. Headings and altitudes are put into the computer quite easily (it's something one has to learn to remember to do), though it will take a little getting used to. The first few times I screw it up, and the next few times I forget. These bugs serve as reminders, they also program the computer (and the autopilot, if you care to use it).

I am not used to flying a tape, and the glide slope indicator is WAY inconspicuous. The aircraft has a HSI (or a synthetic HSI displayed on the screen), which is a terrific instrument for situational awareness, but since the needle tilts, it takes some getting used to. I've flown HSIs before, but not often. More to the point however, the glide slope needle doesn't exist - like most HSIs it is just a dot next to a scale. Unlike most HSIs however, it is located diagonally somewhere else on the screen. I much prefer the horizontal and vertical needles from the old ILS CDI heads. Much much much much! The other stuff is just a question of getting used to it.
http://www.flying20club.org/Jose/cfrom_P9200006.JPG (32K)
http://www.flying20club.org/Jose/from_P9200006.JPG (284K)
(alas, this pic doesn't show the glide slope indicator; if I remember right it would be up next to the altitude tape.)

A little high. A little left. A little low. A lot right. I end up taking us full scale deflection, but manage to save the approach with a little help (where's the speed? where's the altitude?...) There is a lot on these screens that aids situational awareness, but it's also a lot to absorb the first time on glass. It also seems I'm fighting something in the controls. I glance at Mark - no, his hand is not on the stick.

We fly down the runway and go missed. In retrospect, we should have done a touch and go, that would have made the flight a cross country. No matter, hood off, we're returning to Danbury at three thousand feet or so, where we'll do a GPS approach and some landings. We're flying under the cumulous this time, and it's a little bumpier, but since we're closer to the trees, it's prettier in a different way. I try to set the aileron trim for level flight, but it's not working. I'm also a half ball out of center. After some searching, Mark finds the problem. Somehow the autopilot got engaged, and I've been fighting it for a while. Maybe =that's= why I ended up full scale deflected on the approach!

This airplane has a flight director, and on the way back I switch it on to play with it. Essentially, there's a green line with a triangle-shaped slot displayed on the AI on the main computer screen, and one maneuvers the aircraft to put the yellow triangle in the hole (look closely at the display in the picture). Drop dead simple.
http://www.flying20club.org/Jose/cfrom_P9200008.JPG (81K)
http://www.flying20club.org/Jose/from_P9200008.JPG (248K)
After playing with that a while, I turn it off to concentrate on outside, and all the other bells and whistles this plane offers.

About halfway home we call approach to get a practice GPS alpha into Danbury. "Call back when you're near Carmel". Well, ok. We power back a bit, and past Oxford we call again, getting vectors. This time I prefer to see the profile view. One switches views by pushing a button to cycle around. There are only four views so that's ok; I'd've preferred a knob but since these are soft keys (their function changes depending on the screen) that would be impractical. The buttons are labeled on the screen, this works well since there is so much screen real estate. Other data fields can be customized, but alas, there is no way to program the customization for several people who might share an aircraft.

I miss a few radio calls because the controller has our call sign a little wrong ("zero" instead of "sierra") and because I'm distracted with all the new stuff to learn. But Mark gets the calls and we're cleared for the approach. Hood on - twenty five hundred, then two thousand, and on this approach the MDA is thirteen sixty. I level off at thirteen sixty, and continue flying towards the runway. Oops... twelve something! Climb! Climb! Pitch trim is critical in this aircraft, and it's very sensitive. Just a skooch here, a skooch there. We set up to do a few landings - Mark will demonstrate the first one, then I'll get to do two. We're running out of time and he has to boogie. This aircraft is landed flatter than most, as opposed to the technique of holding the nose up until it won't fly any more which is used on other singles. We come in high but the airplane descends nicely, and Mark does a perfect landing, and applies power. Once off and climbing, flaps up and i
t's my airplane.

Well, it will take half a million dollars to make it "my" airplane, but you know what I mean!

The trees go by below us, and shortly, far below us, as the airplane climbs quite nicely. Then pull the power back. Way back. Further than that! Only 12 inches of manifold pressure is needed to keep us flying at pattern speed! We're number two, following a Cessna, in sight. How could you miss it - this is one of those days I could see Boston from here! We're below 120, so we can put in half flaps. I elect full flaps as we turn base. That's a little sooner than Mark would have, but it's ok. We continue down, just making sure that we don't hit any of the towers on the hilltops that precede runway 26. Set the power and leave it (I can't resist jockying it a bit as we approach) and don't flare too much. I get a nice landing too! One more time around, this time Danbury extends our base for a helicopter. Danbury slides by below us, and they call our base way out there. I'm still at pattern altitude, which is perfect. U-turn and we're heading for the runway, though
we're going a bit fast. Flaps... oh yeah! They are not big flaps, but they make a lot of difference! This time I flare a bit high, speed drops a bit, but I grease it in. I know about the issue of brake use on the Cirrus, so I don't apply heavy braking to make the taxiway, but rather, let it roll out to the next one. Mark tells me that I could have made it had I done so. Taxiing back for a moment I notice again the castering nosewheel steering, but I get used to that right away, and we park in front of Reliant. As we're getting out, a twin is trying to taxi past a few airplanes next to us, and looks like he's stuck without wingtip clearance and contemplating shutting down. The two of us get out, and confirm that he has the clearance, so he taxis past, extremely grateful for the assistance. I would be too!

There's a lot more to this airplane we could not cover in this short flight, but it is definately a nice craft. And we had the perfect day to fly it. I can't think of a better way to spend the time than in the air this way!

Jose
ps - if anybody has half a million dollars lying around with nothing to do, send it to me and I promise I will show it a good time!
--
There are more ways to skin a cat than there are cats.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

In article ,
Jose wrote:

And we had the perfect day to fly it. I
can't think of a better way to spend the time than in the air this way!

sweet

--
Bob Noel
Looking for a sig the
lawyers will hate

Jose - Nice writeup - a lot better and more believeable than the
sugarcoated ones in the aviation rags.

Nice report
Nice Pics
Nice Time

Really Envious

Jay B

Nice report, Jose, thanks.

Thanks for that demo report. An awesome machine to be sure. Now all we
need is a return of some irrational exuberance and I can upgrade from my
Cherokee!

You didn't mention how it handled in the bumps, below clouds on the
return flight. How did it handle then?

thanks,
KC


Jose wrote:
Last year at SnF I stopped by the Cirrus booth and indicated interest in
the Cirrus, leading to an offer of a demo flight. Scheduling problems
prevented this from actually happening for over a year, but today the
wait paid off.

A cold front had come through yesterday, bringing rain, mist, low
clouds, and such, but the sun rose today over a pristine and cloudless
sky. Pretty soon some puffies started forming, but a weather briefing
indicated that they would be up around four to five thousand feet, with
a higher layer at about eight. Clear above. With light breezes and a
nice fall day ahead, I headed off to Danbury to meet Mark Bennett, who
would take me on the demo.
We were to meet at one pm. I got there a bit early, and he had gone to
have lunch, so I did a little bit of a walkaround (or more of a
gawkaround, since it wasn't my airplane). It has a castering nosewheel,
and a three bladed prop with what appeared to be a glycol dispenser near
the hub for each blade. The prop had what looked like de-ice boots on
the inner part, but I later found that they are just channels for the
de-ice fluid to follow. I suppose they could have been carved into the
prop just as easily, but it probably would have been harder to do it
that way. Wings and fuselage are composite, but the control surfaces
are metal. Fit and finish is quite impressive. The wing and horizontal
stablizer leading edges appeared to be smooth aluminum with a mesh of
teeny holes. De-ice again, which is a good thing to have in the
Northeast - if you are going to get a high performance airplane to go
places and end up grounded for half the winter, why bother!

There is a discontinuity by the leading edge of the wing, about halfway
out. I later found that this is so that the outer part could have a
different angle of attack, and therefore stall last. I was surprised
that they did it this way rather than with a smoothly varying curve,
which composite construction ought to allow. Near the tail is a placard
saying something like "Warning - rocket parachute - stay clear when
aircraft is occupied." Puzzling that it's all the way in the back. It
turns out that that's where the BRS is kept, and when deployed, the
fuselage unzips so that the shroud lines, some of which are connected to
the nose, can deploy properly. I bet the rocket hurts too if you're too
close.

The baggage compartment opens with a key. It appears you can't leave it
"unlocked". There is no yoke - it is a side stick. Instead of the
usual instruments, there are two TV screens big enough to show the game
between the Yankees and the Knicks, but since I'm not a football fan, I
think I'd opt to have them show flight information. The cockpit is
quite wide, with dark brown leather upholstry, a reasonable imitation of
a five point restraint system, and (just a minute, I have to wipe this
drool off the airplane).
http://www.flying20club.org/Jose/cfrom_P9200003.JPG (35K)
http://www.flying20club.org/Jose/from_P9200003.JPG (282K)

Here he comes. I've brought my flight bag and headset; he says that it
won't be needed. I bring it anyway - I'm still from the old school (but
I know what he means). We do a regular preflight; I do mine in three
stages - first is electrical. On with the master, down with the flaps,
and all the lights work. There is no tail light - just the wing lights
and strobes. And a landing light, of course. There is an electrical
stall warning, but I can't find it. He lets me keep looking, and
eventually he points it out - a 1/8 inch hole in the leading edge of the
wing, which is impractical to test, although some people blow into it.
He claimed it worked on his landing at Danbury, and that's good enough
for me. At least for this flight.

Next, fluids. Oil is good, but the first drain of gas shows lots of
what appear to be little white fibers. I drain a few more times and
eventually get clean samples. The gas tanks (in the wings) are made of
composite, presumably the same stuff the wings are made of, and I bet
this is somehow coming from the inside of the tank. There are two
drains for each wing, and one gascolator sump. We also check the de-ice
fluid. It's a bit hard to see in the de-ice tank because of the sun,
but it appears to be empty, so we'll stay out of the ice. Not too
difficult, as it's a beautiful fall day. The next part of the preflight
is the mechanical stuff. Somewhere during my preflight I climb up onto
the wing to get something in the cabin, and (as I often do in the
cherokees I fly) knelt down on part of the seat cushion. Bang! Ouch!

Every airplane has teeth, and I just found the jaws of the Cirrus.
There is a lip where the wing joins the fuselage at the door, and this
particular one is much higher than the Cherokee's, probably to store the
BRS shroud lines. My shin will remember this for a long time! Anyway,
as I continue the preflight, the Cirrus takes another nip at me. Under
the wing where the flaps attach, there is a long thin fairing which
descends well below the wing, just waiting for the skull of an errant
pilot. That's another mistake I won't make again!

Suitably satisfied that the airplane will fly, we climb in, and the
first thing Mark mentions is that, unlike most little airplane doors,
these gull doors should be slammed shut. He demonstrates on his.
Whumph! Ok, I can do that. Whumph!

Don't do =that= in a Cherokee!

We start the engine; the procedure is similar to any other fuel injected
engine. The power lever (and the mixture control) are located between
the pilot and copilot, and very much resemble a gear shift lever in a
car. It's actually a very natural position for those controls. The
plane comes with Bose headsets; they are impressive - quiet and
comfortable. I can see why people rave about them. The airplane itself
is quite noisy without them, but it's a smooth noise, and the engine is
smooth. Once the fan is turning, Mark goes over the glass cockpit with
me. There is a wealth of information on those two screens, and there
are many buttons along the side that make navigation easy. The screens
are huge. I mean HUGE.
http://www.flying20club.org/Jose/cfrom_P9200004.JPG (37K)
http://www.flying20club.org/Jose/from_P9200004.JPG (290K)
I used to work on a Mac, the original Mac, the one that can be converted
into fish tanks. These are the one piece ones with the (must be) six
inch black and white screens. You get used to anything, and I was used
to that, but I needed to do some laser printing (back in the days when
it was exotic) and went to an outside service to do this. They had a
twenty inch screen, and after using it, coming back to "my" Mac felt
like using a toy computer. Well, these are big screens. But, it will
take some getting used to. I've never flown glass before, and the
information is not always where I expect it, nor is it differentiated
visually the way I'm used to seeing. A tape is a tape. Of course, a
dial is a dial, but I think there are more differences between dials
than between tapes.
On the other screen is the moving map, or the approach plates, or the
engine monitor, or the checklist, or the terrain indicator, or the
weather map (there wasn't any weather to see today), or any number of
other things. I didn't ask about the ball game.
Taxiing out it's important to watch the wings, which are slender and
longer than the Cherokees I'm used to. In the runup area we go throught
the (built in) checklist, flipping back and forth between it and the
engine monitor screen, and are soon ready to take off. Our objective
was to "go somewhere" to get the feeling of travelling in this airplane,
do some airwork, do some instrument approaches, and do some landings, so
we picked Groton as our destination. Ready to go, I line us up on
runway 26, and smoothly apply power. Somewhere around seventy or eighty
knots, slight backpressure on the stick and we've left the confines of
the earth, heading skyward. Lower the nose a bit to climb at a higher
airspeed, up with the flaps (the Cirrus takes off with half flaps), and
we're crossing pattern altitude before we know it. Left downwind
departure, and the five thousand foot layer of beautiful puffy clouds is
arrayed before us. Where we're going is a nice hole, and we watch th
e clouds slide by us as we climb up to almost two miles. The airplane
handles very smoothly and I am especially impressed by the visibility,
although it's a little limited in the direction of bank. Probably no
more so than in the Cherokee though.

It's smooth up at this altitude, with the broken cumulus below us. I
don't usually climb this high, but once settled in, we reach a ground
speed of over 200 knots. There's a little help from the wind, but the
plane is doing about 180 knots true. There's no propeller pitch lever;
all engine operations are done by percent power, and the computer
figures everything out. Leaning is easy too - set up the lean finder
and watch the bars on the engine monitor as you slowly pull back the
mixture. You'll see each individual cylinder reach its peak and turn
blue, and when the last one peaks, richen the mixture 65 degrees. The
computer even tells you when you have best power, best economy, or the
best tacos west of the east. For a first time glass pilot this takes
some eyeball time, but Mark tells me it becomes second nature.

The clouds drop away and Block Island, Long Island, and the Connecticut
shore all present themselves to me in the High Resolution Wraparound
Plexiglass Display (HRWPD, which is the same kind of display used in all
the other small aircraft I've flown). Somehow, it just looks better
today. Maybe it's the gorgeous clear day, maybe it's the higher
altitude, maybe it's the thought that I'm having more fun flying this
Cirrus, or for that matter, just flying, than most of the people in the
world will ever have.

The controls have a different feel to them. On most aircraft I've
flown, the feedback is from the aerodynamic forces on the control
surfaces. On this aircraft, it is from internal springs or bungees that
center the control stick, much like a standard game joystick. You trim
the forces away, but I think that moves some gizmo that moves the
springs. It's not like the aerodynamic feedback I'm used to.

On the right hand screen we pick up the METARs and TAFs for our
destination, call approach to negotiate a practice ILS, and start down.
I do some slow flight on the way down, pulling the power back and
putting in the flaps. First notch (well, it's an electric switch that
has two settings - half and full - they aren't called notches) comes in
at 120 knots, and full flaps when we're slowed down to something like
ninety. Keep pulling the power back and trimming. The Cirrus uses
electric trim - there's a thumb control on the sidestick. It has aleron
and elevator trim, but no rudder trim. There's no manual backup, and
the electric trim is quite sensitive. Normally I prefer manual trim,
but I find the electric trim to be quite nice. I get the aircraft down
to something around sixty knots, and the nose starts bobbing quite a
bit. Stall, droop, stall, droop. We do this for a little while, and
then I try again, this time controlling the pitch more actively. I can
reduce th
e oscillations, but now it doesn't want to fly straight - I need to
control the roll axis too. Perhaps I'm going slower now, but this isn't
really a test pilot flight and I'm not recording the data. Add power,
pull back the flaps, and set up for the approach. I do notice that the
control forces do not get lighter and sloppier the same way that they
would in the Cherokee. It's that bungee thing again, no doubt.

My charts are in the back, but no matter, they are all in the computer.
Click, click, and the approach plate is up on the right hand screen,
along with a little airplane showing where I am on the plate, and the
course lines. The approach is also shown on the moving map, including
the holds and waypoints. There are several views of the chart, and soon
one of the disadvantages (to me) of the glass cockpit becomes apparant.
I wear bifocals, sort of. That is, I need them but I wear glasses that
have one lens set for distant vision, and the other is a bifocal set for
distant and middle vision. The split in that lens is unusually low, as
it's there only so I can see my charts on my lap. Well, these charts
are not on my lap - they are right in front of me! So, I'll need to
re-think my spectacle situation, lest I become a spectacle myself. I
can see the screens well enough however, and I go to don my hood.

"Your airplane". I pull the hood out of my case. Well, actually Mike
gets my case (since the back seat is too far back for me to reach - did
I say this was a =big= four place?) and I put it on. Mike is amused -
it is a cardboard replica of an old Jepp (branded) folding plastic hood
that I absolutely love, but which was stolen many years ago. It fit
better than any hood I've ever used, it folds, and this new version is
cheap. Nothing like flying a half-million dollar airplane with a hand
made cardboard hood on my head!

We're given vectors and cleared for the approach, and I start out well
enough. Headings and altitudes are put into the computer quite easily
(it's something one has to learn to remember to do), though it will take
a little getting used to. The first few times I screw it up, and the
next few times I forget. These bugs serve as reminders, they also
program the computer (and the autopilot, if you care to use it).

I am not used to flying a tape, and the glide slope indicator is WAY
inconspicuous. The aircraft has a HSI (or a synthetic HSI displayed on
the screen), which is a terrific instrument for situational awareness,
but since the needle tilts, it takes some getting used to. I've flown
HSIs before, but not often. More to the point however, the glide slope
needle doesn't exist - like most HSIs it is just a dot next to a scale.
Unlike most HSIs however, it is located diagonally somewhere else on the
screen. I much prefer the horizontal and vertical needles from the old
ILS CDI heads. Much much much much! The other stuff is just a question
of getting used to it.
http://www.flying20club.org/Jose/cfrom_P9200006.JPG (32K)
http://www.flying20club.org/Jose/from_P9200006.JPG (284K)
(alas, this pic doesn't show the glide slope indicator; if I remember
right it would be up next to the altitude tape.)

A little high. A little left. A little low. A lot right. I end up
taking us full scale deflection, but manage to save the approach with a
little help (where's the speed? where's the altitude?...) There is a
lot on these screens that aids situational awareness, but it's also a
lot to absorb the first time on glass. It also seems I'm fighting
something in the controls. I glance at Mark - no, his hand is not on
the stick.

We fly down the runway and go missed. In retrospect, we should have
done a touch and go, that would have made the flight a cross country.
No matter, hood off, we're returning to Danbury at three thousand feet
or so, where we'll do a GPS approach and some landings. We're flying
under the cumulous this time, and it's a little bumpier, but since we're
closer to the trees, it's prettier in a different way. I try to set the
aileron trim for level flight, but it's not working. I'm also a half
ball out of center. After some searching, Mark finds the problem.
Somehow the autopilot got engaged, and I've been fighting it for a
while. Maybe =that's= why I ended up full scale deflected on the approach!

This airplane has a flight director, and on the way back I switch it on
to play with it. Essentially, there's a green line with a
triangle-shaped slot displayed on the AI on the main computer screen,
and one maneuvers the aircraft to put the yellow triangle in the hole
(look closely at the display in the picture). Drop dead simple.
http://www.flying20club.org/Jose/cfrom_P9200008.JPG (81K)
http://www.flying20club.org/Jose/from_P9200008.JPG (248K)
After playing with that a while, I turn it off to concentrate on
outside, and all the other bells and whistles this plane offers.

About halfway home we call approach to get a practice GPS alpha into
Danbury. "Call back when you're near Carmel". Well, ok. We power back
a bit, and past Oxford we call again, getting vectors. This time I
prefer to see the profile view. One switches views by pushing a button
to cycle around. There are only four views so that's ok; I'd've
preferred a knob but since these are soft keys (their function changes
depending on the screen) that would be impractical. The buttons are
labeled on the screen, this works well since there is so much screen
real estate. Other data fields can be customized, but alas, there is no
way to program the customization for several people who might share an
aircraft.

I miss a few radio calls because the controller has our call sign a
little wrong ("zero" instead of "sierra") and because I'm distracted
with all the new stuff to learn. But Mark gets the calls and we're
cleared for the approach. Hood on - twenty five hundred, then two
thousand, and on this approach the MDA is thirteen sixty. I level off
at thirteen sixty, and continue flying towards the runway. Oops...
twelve something! Climb! Climb! Pitch trim is critical in this
aircraft, and it's very sensitive. Just a skooch here, a skooch there.
We set up to do a few landings - Mark will demonstrate the first one,
then I'll get to do two. We're running out of time and he has to
boogie. This aircraft is landed flatter than most, as opposed to the
technique of holding the nose up until it won't fly any more which is
used on other singles. We come in high but the airplane descends
nicely, and Mark does a perfect landing, and applies power. Once off
and climbing, flaps up and i
t's my airplane.

Well, it will take half a million dollars to make it "my" airplane, but
you know what I mean!

The trees go by below us, and shortly, far below us, as the airplane
climbs quite nicely. Then pull the power back. Way back. Further than
that! Only 12 inches of manifold pressure is needed to keep us flying
at pattern speed! We're number two, following a Cessna, in sight. How
could you miss it - this is one of those days I could see Boston from
here! We're below 120, so we can put in half flaps. I elect full flaps
as we turn base. That's a little sooner than Mark would have, but it's
ok. We continue down, just making sure that we don't hit any of the
towers on the hilltops that precede runway 26. Set the power and leave
it (I can't resist jockying it a bit as we approach) and don't flare too
much. I get a nice landing too! One more time around, this time
Danbury extends our base for a helicopter. Danbury slides by below us,
and they call our base way out there. I'm still at pattern altitude,
which is perfect. U-turn and we're heading for the runway, though we're
going a bit fast. Flaps... oh yeah! They are not big flaps, but they
make a lot of difference! This time I flare a bit high, speed drops a
bit, but I grease it in. I know about the issue of brake use on the
Cirrus, so I don't apply heavy braking to make the taxiway, but rather,
let it roll out to the next one. Mark tells me that I could have made
it had I done so. Taxiing back for a moment I notice again the
castering nosewheel steering, but I get used to that right away, and we
park in front of Reliant. As we're getting out, a twin is trying to
taxi past a few airplanes next to us, and looks like he's stuck without
wingtip clearance and contemplating shutting down. The two of us get
out, and confirm that he has the clearance, so he taxis past, extremely
grateful for the assistance. I would be too!

There's a lot more to this airplane we could not cover in this short
flight, but it is definately a nice craft. And we had the perfect day
to fly it. I can't think of a better way to spend the time than in the
air this way!

Jose
ps - if anybody has half a million dollars lying around with nothing to
do, send it to me and I promise I will show it a good time!

Jose wrote:

Last year at SnF I stopped by the Cirrus booth and indicated
interest in the Cirrus, leading to an offer of a demo flight.
Scheduling problems prevented this from actually happening for
over a year, but today the wait paid off.
snip

Enjoyed your write-up. Thanks for taking the time to post it here.


--
Peter

Peter R. wrote:

Jose wrote:


Last year at SnF I stopped by the Cirrus booth and indicated
interest in the Cirrus, leading to an offer of a demo flight.

Scheduling problems prevented this from actually happening for

over a year, but today the wait paid off.

snip

Enjoyed your write-up. Thanks for taking the time to post it here.



Yes, and thanks for snipping your post, unlike the previous poster who
felt the need to include the entire original post to add his one liner.

Matt

On Thu, 21 Sep 2006 01:50:44 GMT, Jose
wrote in :

Thanks for taking the time to create your report (with photos too). I
enjoyed it.

ps - if anybody has half a million dollars lying around ...

You don't need that much cash. Advertise for two or three partners,
and consider a co-ownership in one of these:

http://www.globalair.com/aircraft_fo...rrus_SR22.html
Cirrus SR22 Aircraft For Sale
Aircraft for sale listings.

Listing Serial Reg Year TT Location Price
-------------------------------------------------------------
Cirrus SR22 0449 1220C 2003 580 North Carolina $315,000
Cirrus SR22 800 510NL 2004 189 Texas Make offer
Cirrus SR22 98 122CG 2001 1325 Indiana Make offer
Cirrus SR22 59 723CD 2001 1968 Indiana Make offer
Cirrus SR22 0072 359S 2001 850 Tennessee Make offer
Cirrus SR22 0356 622CD 2002 530 Ohio Make offer
Cirrus SR22 0544 5VK 2003 265 Ohio Make offer
Cirrus SR22 0677 8140V 2003 735 Ohio Make offer
Cirrus SR22 502 1314C 2003 895 Indiana Make offer
Cirrus SR22 936 575CD 2004 420 Missouri Make offer
Cirrus SR22 0941 432CD 2004 725 Colorado Make offer
Cirrus SR22 1428 616AS 2005 481 Indiana Make offer
Cirrus SR22 1610 54KS 2005 140 Ohio Make offer
Cirrus SR22 1253 281CD 2005 330 New York Make offer

You may find that you can afford to move up rather easier than you
think.

ps - if anybody has half a million dollars lying around ...
You don't need that much cash. Advertise for two or three partners,
and consider a co-ownership in one of these:

Ok, if anybody has half a million dollars lying around and wants to split two planes with me, send me the money and I'll arrange it.

Jose
--
"Never trust anything that can think for itself, if you can't see where it keeps its brain." (chapter 10 of book 3 - Harry Potter).
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.