Back in the Cirrus

Our Cirrus SR-20 had been down for overhaul since December and just went back on line Friday evening. The initial break-in hours were flown off so I grabbed an instructor pal to go out and get current again in the airplane.

Our insurance company requires three hours in the airplane within the previous 180 days plus some time as PIC within the previous 90 for currency purposes. Since the airplane has been down for more than three months, well, almost nobody in the club is current in the airplane.

I figured the race is to the swift, so if I was the first instructor to get current in the airplane I'd be in a good position to get our other club members current in it as well.

There had been a lot of talk at our last club meeting about how pilots could get current again, most of which involved splitting hairs and bizarre schemes where two pilots, neither of whom were current in the airplane, could go fly it and get current, one by flying and one by acting as a safety pilot.

That seems like about as good idea as self-performed brain surgery to me. Sure, by the letter of our insurance policy they'd be technically current. Proficient is a whole different matter though. And I wouldn't want to explain to the insurance company how I jumped in the airplane without having even done a takeoff and landing but somehow considered myself covered.

The irony is there's no insurance requirement that instructors actually be current in the airplane. So, technically I can not fly the thing for a year, hop in with another club member and get them current. Then, as PIC, I'd be magically current as well. All without touching the controls.

Anyhow, I figure if I'm going to be flying and teaching in something I should probably have an above average level of proficiency in it. I certainly owe my clients that much, not to mention it just might save both our butts if things go wrong.

Plus, I just wanted to go out and really work the airplane since it had been about four months since I'd flown it.

So, off we went for a bunch of stalls with full flaps, half flaps, no flaps, power on, power off, turning stalls and generally flying the thing near its envelope. The big deal when stalling the Cirrus is to keep the ailerons neutral and work the rudder to keep the wings level. That's a good idea in any airplane but even more important in the Cirrus, which can turn nasty if you start yanking the ailerons about in the stall.

My instructor pal and I talked about what to really look out for when checking folks out in the airplane, which was great. He's a Cirrus Standardized Instructor with a ton of hours in various Cirri so I was happy to glean as much information as possible while still trying to remember how to fly the airplane.

After a couple of steep turns, which started out ugly and got better after I got used to the sight picture again, we headed over to Princeton and worked on some landings.

We did the normal full flap landing (80 knot Vref on final), some half-flap landings (85 knot Vref) and a no-flapper (90 knot Vref) and a fun power-off approach and landing.

The Cirrus training guide recommends, or outright stipulates I'm not sure which, that power-off approaches to landings only be practiced with more than 5,000 feet of runway. We didn't have quite that at Princeton but figured we both were sharp enough on the stick that it wouldn't be a problem.

As it turned out, the power-off landing worked out just fine and it was fun to slip the baby Cirrus down final with full flaps.

The highlight of the day was a no-flap takeoff, which calls for a rotation speed of 90 knots. That's getting close to light jet territory in terms of speed and it's an impressive sight to be barreling down the runway waiting for 90 knots to show up. It'll fly if you rotate below that, but not particularly well.

After that bit of fun I went under the hood, flew an uneventful GPS 14L approach back into Crystal and finished up with a circling approach to 32R.

All totalled up it was 1.8 hours, very little of which was spent straight and level. Honestly, I think that's about the minimum for really getting back up to speed and proficient in the airplane after a long period of not flying it. We pretty much did everything you need to do in the airplane with a minimum of fussing around and it still took nearly two hours.

How on earth somebody thinks they can go watch somebody else fly a couple of instrument approaches and suddenly be truly proficient is beyond me.

I think a big part of that boils down to the difference between being a professional and not. It might sound self-serving, but a pro knows what he doesn't know and goes up to learn it, get sharp again and get truly proficient. An amateur looks for shortcuts or is just willing to accept a lower level of proficiency.

All that aside, it's a fun airplane and runs like a champ now. It had been a bit pokey before and it was obvious the lump was getting tired but now it runs like it's supposed to, climbs strongly again and is showing about 10 knots more indicated airspeed than it had been.

I'm finally getting within shouting distance of the 250 hours of dual given that is a requirement before heading up to Duluth to go through their CSIP training, so that's a good thing. I'm really looking forward to teaching the Cirrus since they're fun airplanes to fly and you just gotta love the avionics.

Luckily, I can teach in our club SR-20 without being a Cirrus Standardized Instructor, so I'll pick up some more time and experience in the airplane over the next month or two before I head up to Duluth.

The next few months are going to be busy, which is good. My schedule is getting more and more booked and I'm pretty much flying every day into June. In fact, I'm busy enough that I need to work at keeping at least one day a week open so I can get a day off.

I never thought I'd want a day off from flying but they're actually quite a treat.