I’ve done the high terrain on my long cross country solo. The mountains are at 7500FT. I’m going to go solo to Las Vegas once or twice just to see the best way to get in before I do the trip. The trip is almost 4 months out. I’ll be doing a lot of solo time till then. I might just take my dad with me to keep company. We’ll take a Diamond DA40 or if possible the SR20. I’ll just fly there during the day and then get fuel, get lunch and fly back.
That will be in the middle of the summer. I’d NEVER even consider getting anywhere close to Las Vegas in July near max gross. Seriously, 2200 feet plus 43C is no joke! 6000 density altitude is very common there in the summer. I’d cap my maximum weight by 200-250 lbs at least.
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I’m not going to take Max Gross anymore. I’m taking three including me. Weight and cg are in much more favorable regions. If another friend wants to fly, I’m gonna have them switch out for the way back. Thanks for the advice, I understand the risks here. I’ve always been conservative. As I said I was against this when it came up because of the terrain, but since I did it before and know how it looks, I know I could consider it.
Amen! A friend tried to fly out of Vegas in the summer in a ‘20 with 4 people once. Never again! High temperatures are really tough with the ‘20; don’t push the envelope.
im just gonna gonna do three including me and 40 Gallons of fuel as it’ll be much easier to handle.
2900 is more tolerable. Be careful with winds aloft there, because if you get a downdraft, you’re going down. Anything above 25 kts gets me concerned.
Fly in the morning too, if you don’t want everyone vomiting. 
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of course. Thanks all for your help to keep me safe.
One item not mentioned. In the back of a Cirrus for safety, the three people in the back need to be able to sit with their hips and shoulders against the back of the seat. You likely cannot do that with three adults. So regardless of if you can do it within W&B this would make it not something to consider. I’m pretty sure it says it in the POH (but I could be mistaken.)
Derek
Renesh I’ll pile on from a slightly different angle, with absolutely no disrespect intended. I don’t know anything about your CFI, but he or she is not a panacea against all risk. If you were a member I’d direct you to a terrible accident that occurred here in Scottsdale involving a student pilot with an instructor who flew a Piper loaded to the max to their demise, also on their way to Vegas.
I don’t doubt the performance tables in our flight manuals. But these tables cannot anticipate our performance, weather conditions or terrain issues. So maybe we aren’t precise enough and lose a bit of energy that cannot be recovered while climbing. Or, as is commonly the case around Vegas, turbulence and downdrafts find us. Or terrain prohibits leveling the aircraft to build energy - sometimes the way to climb is to lower the nose after all. The airplane doesn’t read the book, it merely does what it can with the weight, power and pitch it’s given. At the edge of the envelope this works in theory, and in practice say 98% of the time. Personally I’d want a few hundred pounds of buffer from the edge, and wouldn’t get near the balance margin at all. Your mission, as with all GA missions, is not important. And your guests are trusting you so much…
Yes of course. Not even gonna do 4 people. And I don’t take any offense either. I’ve flown one person in the back with my CFI on our c172 for night cross country. I’m going to only do three including me as the new weight and balance shows and play it on the safe side.
You mentioned that you saw 300 fpm out of Barstow (I think) in the summer in a 172. Depending on the model, Vy in a 172 is 70-75 KIAS if I recall correctly. Compare this to the SR20 Vy (95?..not sure about the G6). This means that at similar climb rates, your climb gradient is significantly more shallow in the SR20 than in the 172. Terrain and obstacles will have a way of sneaking up on you, especially if you are used to the 172, and you will be tempted to raise the nose to clear them…there lies the path to The Dark Side.
You have already received some sage advice from some very experienced Cirrus pilots here. Let me add mine:
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Do not even consider making a flight like this at all until you have your PPL and LOTS of SR20 experience in a variety of conditions under your belt…even with a CFI.
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In many ways the SR20 is actually more demanding to fly than the SR22. The SR22 has the power and performance to extract the pilot from a marginal situation that s/he entered through inexperience, incapacity or neglect. The SR20 does not. At high density altitudes, it sucks, there’s no other way to describe it. In the mountains or at high density altitudes you are well advised to fly the SR20 with the mindset of a soaring pilot because as others have mentioned, the interaction of wind with terrain will matter a great deal to the plane’s performance (and to your and your passengers’ anxiety levels).
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In general, before making any flight that might push the limits of aircraft or pilot capability or weather, ask yourself, “How will this read in the NTSB report?”
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If you are serious about learning the Cirrus and maybe owning one someday, join COPA. The wealth of information, experience and camaraderie is worth far more than the annual membership fee. Critical feedback may sound harsh or even judgmental at times–such are the limitations of an internet forum–but the intentions are good: we all want to keep each other alive, well and flying!
I wish you good luck and much enjoyment in your flying career! We all hope to read your future posts about happy and safe flights in the Cirrus.
I’m not a risky pilot by any means. I knew the aft cg was dangerous, and did not know if it was normal in a Cirrus or not, because no matter how I loaded it I couldn’t get more fwd cg than the mid point, so I wanted to ask others for their opinions. Now I know three is best. And I’m gonna take my friends on multiple short 1 hr local flights so they understand when to watch out for things and when to talk. And for the mountain climb it was 300FPM in the winter. I have the flight plan used in the photo. I went out a couple miles East then crossed overhead KSBD. Easily got to 9500 well before the mountains. That’s a 160HP Lycoming O320.
Personally I would not fly with friends (except lunch runs) until you are instrument rated. There is just too much pressure to scud run or some other similar foolishness. Maybe this is a non issue flying in the west but here in Texas it is not uncommon to have unforeseen ifr conditions. Are you really going to want to tell your friends to take a commercial flight? Even with the ifr rating you will have to cancel flights but it will happen much less frequently
We have almost 345 VFR days here in SoCal. Of course that’s not an exact number. But it’s a testament to how good the weather is here.
Good line. “ Are you really going to want to tell your friends to take a commercial flight?”
I’d make this part of your passenger brief. The least littlest thing doesn’t look perfect and we land /or don’t take off and rent a car/airline ticket. It makes you a hero (not the other way around).
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It may be VFR clear and a million, but the strong gusty winds are the real issue.
Can you do a landing with an 18k gusting crosswind? That is the problem - you have to be able to handle anything.
Fly a lot of local 1 hour flights for several seasons. Get used to how often the forecasts are wrong. Fly in moderate turbulence.
Practice, practice, practice. Go to dozens of new airports (towered, uncontrolled, short runways). Be able to fly that plane comfortably before taking any passengers. That is a minimum of 25 hours after you get your private license.
You might have noticed that many of the posts are pretty strongly worded. Most all of us have lost a friend that was flying a Cirrus. We don’t want any more losses.
Take these posts to heart.
Yes of course. I fly twice a week and will easily get a lot of solo time in the aircraft before our trip. And I’ve done gust up to 20kt before my solo. But definitely will do a lot of local solo flights to get experience.
And something I just realized is that all the weight and balance pics I sent from ForeFlight are completely wrong. The stations are setup wrong and I’m going to have to use the POH to figure it out. The weight doesn’t change of course.
Maybe it’s just a coincidence but LAX is forecasting IFR tomorrow morning. Last week I flew on a day forecasted for vfr and sunny and I ended up in imc for an hour running the deice the whole time. That wasn’t even flying over mountains.
Look at the POH or the weight and balance in the MFD and you’ll see how problematic the SR20 G6 is with regards to aft CG, especially the ones with the composite prop, like mine. This airframe was designed for a heavy continental 6 cylinders. The Lycoming engine was introduced 20+ years later and that moved the CG back quite a bit. I’ve regretted buying the composite prop, because the 25 lbs of payload I gained is pretty much useless.
This is the kind of stuff sales people don’t tell you and you’ll learn from ownership.
I can only load my airplane to max gross because I’m quite heavy (270) and I have little kids. If I have 4 adults at the same weight, I think it’s impossible to fit within the envelope.
