Mike,

Why is it bad to need a type rating? I think you would that training even if you were not required to. Forgive me if I am wrong, MU2s had a undeserved bad reputation because it is a unique design and alot of people were not flying them properly. Then came an SFAR that drastically reduced the amount of crashes. What is your opinion of training in an MU2 vs a regular type rating?

If it's not, you shouldn't be flying any of these planes.



No what I'm saying is buying an M2 from Textron and then going to a different company called Flight Safety can be very intimidating. Flight Safety is set up to train pro pilots in all sorts of complex jets - many requiring two pilots - and your average SF50 owner has no prior history with the company.

When you deal with Cirrus, you are dealing with a company whose philosophy is to make flying accessible and simple, even if it comes at the expense of performance. So training is warm and friendly and completely designed with the owner pilot in mind and done at the same place and by the same people you picked up your plane from. A very very different experience than even a M600 recurrent at Legacy.

In my movie version of this the last scene involves a SF50 starting up, taxing out to the runway, and departing off towards the sunset. As it’s climbing out the view is from a point in the sky ahead of the airplane looking out and down as it is getting closer. Time slows and you can see the pilots smiling face washed in the warm glow of the setting sun. As the jet passes the camera pans to the back seat. We see an enormous thank you basket with a note “Thank’s Mike C position holder 178” on the note at the top.
The jet passes, continues into the distance, the heat from the engine creating a rippled distortion of the view between the v tail. As it begins to shrink in the distance a meteor streaks through the sky and shears the tail off. Then a second streak away from the airplane as the rocket for the chute launches. The screen fades to black as the fuselage, now a shadowed silhouette in the twilight, gently rocks back and forth under the enormous canopy.

The astute observer will have noticed the out of focus, lonely, and forelorn MU2 in the back corner of the airfield as the SF50 taxied out.



The original post was intentionally vague. More to the point - without Mike this thread would’ve never made 494 pages and it would be a lot less interesting. If you think that negative attention is it bad, then I would suggest you don’t fully understand how attention works.

I forgot to mention how the movie starts. Man sitting on a rock in the middle of a wheat field in the dark. Sirens in the distance. As the light breeze rustles the wheat in waves around him there is something billowing up fuzzy in the background that we can’t quite make out. The view cuts to one over his shoulder and we see that he is on BT writing “and it has a weak tail too!”

The presumption is that SF50 pilots can't fly a twin engine jet. That's the whole point of the SF50, the single engine makes it "simpler" and "easier". In that case, a type rating course is a major challenge.

Or to put it another way, if you can do a type rating course, you can fly a twin engine jet.

I think a type rating is great, should need one for the turboprops, too. Would cut down on accidents.


The MU2 training isn't a type rating, though it has some similarities.

I would have preferred if it was a type rating (like Canada requires). Would have fit so much better into the regulatory framework. But the FAA didn't see it that way for some unknown reason.

Mike C.

That is not at all the philosophy of the SR line. The SR is expensive, complex, and high performance.

The SF50 is expensive, complex, and low performance. The low performance didn't actually buy any pilot simplicity.


I don't understand why you think other training providers are not friendly.

Also, when you are looking at 200 and 1/2 in turbulence, icing, night, there's no teddy bear there to make you feel comfortable. Training has to be hard to be any good. If Cirrus is coddling their pilots, that's bad in the long term.

Mike C.

That's your presumption. Why do you think its everyone else's?? Maybe some people believe its cheaper to buy and operate? You may not believe it, but its not your money or your decision.

I’ve hand flown 225 and 2400’ RVR in turbulence, at night in moderate rain in my Bonanza. Strong gusting crosswind too.

Everything I’ve read about these modern technology filled designs says they are easier to fly. Are you saying an approach like this is a problem for these aircraft?

That's your presumption.

It is if the training is fluffy.

Training needs to be HARD, not "comfy", because the real world isn't always comfy.

Mike C.

This is a lie. By accessible, I didn't mean inexpensive, I meant approachable for a pilot without a ton of experience. So I agree it is expensive but certainly not complex and not all that high performance either.



This is also a lie. I have flown the SF50. It is dirt simple to fly and designed from the ground up to be single pilot friendly. It is even easier to fly than the M600 I own which is also designed to be single pilot friendly at the expense of performance. The SF50 is also easier to fly than the SR22T I used to own.



Because I have been to them. They're not mean though. Cirrus allows aviation enthusiasts to enhance their professional and personal passions. They sell a lifestyle. Everyone else sells planes and that's why Cirrus outsells all the piston competition and is starting to outsell the TP competition as well. Even with a product, as you have pointed out, that flies lower, slower and uses more gas and runway. Cirrus brings that same philosophy to their training and so it is much more approachable and much less intimidating than Flight Safety or Simcom without lessening the quality of the training.

For all I know my training has been fluffy by your standards. I’ve never been to Flight Safety or one of the professional pilot training shops.

Just good old fashioned local CFII’s. It hasn’t prevented me from flying more than a few approaches to minimums over the years in poor weather.

Have you been through the Vision Jet training and found it to be sub-standard?

I don’t think it’s a presumption they can’t fly a twin engine plane, that’s your extreme bias presenting.

Many people are happy flying singles including me.

The single engine is definitely simpler to fly:

No V1 cuts
No single engine approaches
No engine restarts
No engine shut downs

You’ve just cut out 50% of the type rating. It’s definitely simpler so they have achieved their goal if that was one. Not sure I’d base my assumptions on marketing materials.

Andre
W.

page 10/ 06 Dec 2014, 00:28

If you airplane isn't trying to kill you like an MU2..... It isn't really flying.

This is Mike C's passive aggressive way of telling you that he thinks you suck as a pilot.