Curiosity is killing me. What is it about the Cirrus that causes the landing challenges?

I ask because I am totally unfamiliar with the characteristics and have never flown or ridden in one.

To tell you the truth, I don't know and I fly one. I find it very easy to land. You don't have the ability to slow down quickly with gear, and the flap speed is rather low (119KIAS in the G3), but again, seems very easy to land smoothly and under comeplete control.

Nevertheless, I applaud Cirrus and COPA for addressing an issue when they see it (increased incidents). The only one I looked at lately went off the end of the RW.

Rick could give a much better answer, I'm sure. And he probably will. Although with his role on COPA, he may be busy for a day or two with the pull over Houston today.

Glenn,

I agree with Nate regarding landing. I don't find it hard, I find it relatively easy, to land my Cirrus. On the other hand I try to fly a stabilized approach and use good technique. When I first flew the plane I had a little difficulty in running out of energy in the flare and the Cirrus is not as forgiving as a Bonanza.

With that said landing properly is just basic airmanship. There are pilots flying all kinds of airplanes that are a bit lacking in basic airmanship. Not long ago I flew with an instructor friend to check out in a Decathlon. I hadn't flown a tail wheel airplane in over a year. When we did the debrief he said he was a bit surprised and pleased that even in a decent crosswind I was always right down the center line. I never even gave that a thought. Isn't that where you are supposed to be? Apparently, in this instructor's case it must not be all that common.

What I think is going on here is that Cirrus and COPA are SERIOUS about flying safety and great training. I have read very favorable, and maybe a bit wistful, comments from at least one other type club safety representative about the standard Cirrus is setting. As I said above, I applaud these efforts. I also suspect that pilots of a lot of other types could benefit from refresher training on the basics.

Glenn, I'll give you the non owners perspective on this because I definitely found the plane more difficult than any other plane I've flown to land. I got my private at 80 hours after 2 years of training. One trip down to LA and I told my instructor I needed to be flying a faster plane. SR20 here we come.

The best way for me to describe how it felt is they're "slippery" and the side yoke is very sensitive (think race car steering sensitivity). Even with flaps out I found it really easy to have the airplane coming in too fast. It was totally manageable if you were very diligent and did most things right, just not very forgiving compared to my V35A or a 172/182. After 10 hours of flying it I felt like I was of mediocre competency and had to work to stay ahead of the airplane in the pattern.

The planes are gorgeous and amazingly fun to fly, I will almost certainly start renting them once I get my instrument, but required a lot more diligence than my Bo.

Hope that completely anecdotal information helps.

Hish, as you have discovered, lots of opinions and not a lot of analysis about GA safety statistics.

As the Aviation Safety Chair for the Cirrus Owners and Pilots Association (COPA), the Cirrus type club like ABS, we've learned a lot about improving a COPA Culture of Safety. We've had our rough patches, we've had people like Steve Wilson who was a sales dealer for a competitor, we've had skeptics who believed you needed to be a "real aviator" to fly anything, we've had successes.

In the past several years, we have had a remarkable trend in decreasing fatal accidents. Here's the data overlayed on a slide prepared by NTSB Board member and ABS member Earl Weener:


And the data for all accident investigations in the NTSB database looks like this:


Couple of interesting observations. 1) Fatal accident rate for Personal flying in all of GA actually increased 20 percent in the decade 2000-2010. 2) Cirrus accident rate has been trending downward for a decade. 3) Overall Cirrus investigations have been less than the overall GA rate for a long time.

Have fun with data, eh?

Cheers
Rick

Sources:
Presentation slides: compiled for a safety briefing to the Aero Club of Northern California, "Accident Wise", April 30, 2015 by Rick Beach
NTSB accident rates: presentation by NTSB Board Member Earl Weener (see http://www.ntsb.gov/news/speeches/EWeen ... 150318.pdf)
Cirrus fatal accidents: world-wide data compiled by COPA, includes several foreign accidents never investigated by NTSB (see Cirrus Accident Rates)
Cirrus investigations: query of NTSB database for model=Cirrus, category=Airplane, Amateur Built=No
Cirrus fleet hours: Reliability Engineering staff at Cirrus aircraft based on data by serial number of Hobbs hours from warranty cards, service bulletins, and CAPS repacks, then modeled using Weibull distribution to the fleet

Glenn, I'll give you the non owners perspective on this because I definitely found the plane more difficult than any other plane I've flown to land. I got my private at 80 hours after 2 years of training. One trip down to LA and I told my instructor I needed to be flying a faster plane. SR20 here we come.

The best way for me to describe how it felt is they're "slippery" and the side yoke is very sensitive (think race car steering sensitivity). Even with flaps out I found it really easy to have the airplane coming in too fast. It was totally manageable if you were very diligent and did most things right, just not very forgiving compared to my V35A or a 172/182. After 10 hours of flying it I felt like I was of mediocre competency and had to work to stay ahead of the airplane in the pattern.

The planes are gorgeous and amazingly fun to fly, I will almost certainly start renting them once I get my instrument, but required a lot more diligence than my Bo.

Hope that completely anecdotal information helps.

The "stick" along the left side in the Cirrus is absolutely easy to master in about 3 minutes. It's not a joy stick, pivoting all directions at its base, but rather works just like a regular Bonanza yoke.....it's just a couple inches to the left of where your hand would be in the bonanza.

To Todd's and Arlen's points the plane is easy to fly but like every plane I've yet flown there are nuances. I find the side yoke easy to use. It is easy to fly the plane with fingertips and it is a simple matter to maintain coordination. Of course you use your body in the way Glenn describes to fly any airplane properly.

With that said the plane is extremely responsive. It is actually fun to roll quickly into turns for example because it has a very "nimble" feel. I suppose that if you are an over controller it could make flying straight and level more difficult. In the pattern, and on approach, the beginnings of landings which Cirrus and COPA are focusing on again, the biggest issue is proper speed control. Again this is basic airmanship. It is not difficult. I find when the plane is properly trimmed it flies right down the glide path with no difficulty. About 25 per cent power seems to be work very well. As with any approach wind speed changes may require tweaking.

Now, if you like to come over the numbers 10 knots too fast and then wander down the runway, or try to force the plane on the ground, you're going to have trouble. I have a friend who uses a lot of runway yell at me on very short final "too slow! too slow!". I continued. Made a squeakier landing and told him "don't EVER do that again!" scared the hell out of me. Then explained the proper approach speed per the POH of 80-85 knots and that we were right in the middle. I think sometimes pilots who don't really understand the envelope, or are perhaps not confident in their abilities in the pattern, fly faster than they should to compensate and get themselves into trouble on the runway.

The Cirrus landing gear is not as forgiving as some like the Bonanza which just soaks up poor technique. If you try to force the plane on before it's ready it will bounce. This leads, if not managed properly as in a go around, to loss of directional control and/or porpoising. I read an article in the TBM magazine last night about the retraining of a new TBM pilot to prepare for his 709 ride after continuing to try to land his plane after the second bounce. It's not a Cirrus issue - its a pilot issue. As I and others have said earlier in this thread, when you fly on speed in a stable approach landing is easy. Good approach, good landing right? I haven't taken the new landing course yet, I will, but I'm willing to bet that this is going to be a very large chunk of it.

Talk to instructors, talke to linemen for that matter, there are a lot of mediocre pilots who don't train frequently enough just "getting by". Go out and watch landings and see Bonanzas taking half the runway to touch down. In a Cirrus, or in many other aircraft for that matter, that mediocrity and casual attitude can and will get you into trouble.

I did a demo flight in an SR22 last year and on the very first flight and first landing, I landed it smooth as silk. It's not hard to land but like with any highly laminar wing, speed control is important, especially on final and on landing. Stick the speed and nail the landing.

I've had a fair amount of time in a Cherokee 250 which also has a highly laminar wing and isn't the most forgiving airplane in landing. I learned in that airplane to stick the speed on final and over the threshold and fly her down to the runway. If you do that, landings are a breeze.

There's no way you're that ham fisted flying your Bo. I hadn't thought about it until I flew my Bo after I flew the SR, but the first thing I recognized was I only used my left hand when flying. My other hand was ALWAYS on the throttle (where it should be) when landing and taking off. The only difference is I now have an EXTREMELY comfortable place for my arm to rest while I have my left hand on the YOKE.

Now I can recall my first instructor breaking my instinct to use both hands on the yoke when landing. That was accomplished before my first solo at 12 hours.

With that said, the Bo is the easiest plane to land I've ever flown. Much easier than the 172/182. The SR is also easier than those, IMO. At least, to land smooothly.