New SR22 Report

Guest Discussion
1

Well folks, I just arrived home from Duluth in a new SR22. What an awesome machine! The experience in Duluth was wonderful and the folks at Cirrus were wonderful. We got off to a bumpy start with a little “gremlin” that Bob Smoke mentioned in a previous post. The “gremlin” turned out to be the antenna diplexer which splits the antenna connection for the appropriate frequency for the appropriate use (i.e. nav/com). The autopilot had to be replaced too. Both items were not Cirrus manufacturered components. We finally commenced flight training on Thursday. The weather had been horrible and the gales of November were certainly earning their name. Winds every day were 20 to 30 knots. One great thing is that this aircraft performed wonderfully in spite of these high winds.

Our flight home on Saturday from DLH to Allentown, PA was uneventful. ATC was great, although we were vectored around some nuclear power plants near Sandusky. One of the controllers out of Green Bay decided to have a 10 minute conversation with us through his airspace. He had lots of questions about our beautiful aircraft and we certainly provided him with a quick education.

Indicated speeds were consistantly 180 knots or there abouts. Ground speeds were 220 knots from DLH to TOL and then reduced to 196 to 206 knots to Allentown, PA. The whole trip was flown at 7,500 feet with one fuel stop in Green Bay, WI. We landed with about 25 gallons of fuel remaining.

The experience of going to Duluth was very much worth it. The folks up there had that Disney attitude of customer service where they refuse to allow a customer to have a bad experience with them. It started from the time we entered the door at Cirrus, when we were greeted by Lisa Bath. Barbara Whitney was wonderful. There is a tremendous amount of activity up there as they manage their growing pains. The training program is great and no one should be concerned about the Wings Aloft situation. The instructors, all of them seemed to be very good. Even our guy, Thom Leveque, with Cirrus only two weeks and we were his first students, performed very well. They are definitely concerned about the training and education you receive due to the incidents in the past.

One great airplane!

Chris

2

I did my training in some of that weather Chris mentioned. The plane handled it without a problem and one day we found that there was an inversion layer with 30s below and mid 50s where we were. My second training approach was a GPS using the AP and altitude preselect. I cranked it down to DA and went missed as we could not find the ground.

Left Thursday as Chris was starting, and flew with an instructor to AFW, Alliance Fort Worth. John Fiscus, a former Wings Aloft employee, is excellent and very steady. John flew back to Duluth while I flew on to El Paso, Tucson, Lancaster CA and then home, just north of San Francisco Bay. I took the Southern route to comply with factory break in requirements, full power. I was able to stay at 8,000 for all but 30 minutes of the 2 1/2 day trip.

TAS was 185 to 180 with ground speeds up to 210. Temperatures were in the mid to high teens C over the southern portion of the route. Total of 32 hours on engine at this point.

A downer was pulling the passenger side upper door pull away from the door upon reaching AFW. Had to push the door in from the outside when I took my wife up yesterday.

Tried using a CD player, headset output jack, CD volume jacked up and was able to achieve very low volume on way home. However yesterday with two of us we not hear the CD.

I Loved it. Looking forward to flying over for my first oil change and hopefully fixing the door Thursday AM.

Note, mine was the 100th SR22 delivered, contract # 107, picked up late due to scheduling conflicts.

Bob 96SY

3

Bob,
Glad to hear about your positive experiences with your new plane. We took delivery of the 99th SR22 just before you got yours. We were a bit dismayed to find out we had the 99th and that we would miss all of the national flying mag photo ops! Our experiences with the plane have been really great.
Stay safe.
Greg