I’m in between airplanes so I thought I’d get a quick VFR check out in a SR22 so I can stay current. With 22,000 hours, multiple type ratings and a long GA background they require 9 hours of flight time plus ground school over a 3 day period. And this is for a VFR transition course only!! My MU2 initial was 12 hours over 3 days. WOW! That Cirrus must really be a handful.

It is. It is so safe that pilots do dangerous things.

Mike C.

I suspect that they are using a standard Cirrus-approved syllabus.

A quick search online turned up a Cirrus transition syllabus from 2011 that calls for 6 hrs, 7 xc legs, and 15 landings.

15 landings seem reasonable, not sure about 7 cross country legs for VFR only.

You can blame your fellow Cirrus pilots and accident rate.

I see Cirrus is offering free transition training for used Cirrus purchases, likely thru an approved seller but this is unique and is being driven by accident rates and overall insurance industry. These airplanes are very expensive and often carry very high net wealth peeps.

I haven't flown a SR20 in 9-10 years, but I will say the Cirrus is not a 172 when it comes to systems and flight dynamics. It lands flat and doesn't provide a lot of control force feedback to know where it's at in it's flight regime (no sense of mushy controls or getting slow on crosswinds or base to final). There are systems complexities to learn above a 172 or in my opinion a Bonanza. An example: knowing when to use the parachute vs. gliding to forced landing.

I didn't feel comfortable until about 5 hours in and even then in the remaining Cirrus training syllabus my instructor threw stuff at me I was happy he was there to teach me how to handle it.

Being where insurance is and going, it's easier for a school to use the standard syllabus (which I thought was very good and confidence building) and know that if you go and pile drive it, they can tell the lawyers, hey this guy was standardized trained.

Yeah, it's a lot of hours, but it was rewarding and worth the time.

I did my annual flight review and IPC this year in a Cirrus. Never was in one before. Took a little over an hour.

The instructor signed me off and I learned a lot. But getting all there was to know about that autopilot would take me 6 hours easily. And it is an autopilot airplane.

Not sure I agree with you there. It’s driven by Cirrus wanting to train owners how to make use of the safety features to achieve the lower accident rate they felt it should have, and it worked. And it’s not through “approved sellers”, you only need to show you’ve not been trained before (and I think even a different model will get you more training still) and use a Cirrus approved instructor.

And they’re really not that much more expensive than equivalent aged -36’s.

And there is a lot to learn. Maybe I’m just slow, but the time went by quickly in my 4 days for the IFR version of Embark. In my second flight (about 5 yrs after my first) I flew right seat and landed like a boss on my second attempt. Not hard to fly, but a lot to learn.

Overall it’s been a great program, glad they had it available.

And so you know, a former V35 driver.

We recently transitioned to a SR-22 and the insurance required the Embark training for both of us (co-ownership). My partner had much less experience so he took the factory provided course (which is amazing since we bought it used) and I took the course at my expense from one of their instructors called CSIPs. I was through the curriculum in a long day and 4.5 hours of flying. I will say that my partner with 4 days of CSIP training could run the Perspective Plus quite a bit better than I could but after working with him and reviewing the videos, I am up to speed. There is a required set of videos to complete before your flight training that is aimed at someone transitioning from a 172 and just got their license. It was well done but somewhat painful with the level that it was done. The explanation that the aircraft was powered by a reciprocating piston engine with a long explanation of how it works almost sent me over the edge.

I commend Cirrus for providing this course. It is a little different from a systems standpoint but it still flies like an airplane. The attention to detail and their safety systems even aside from the parachute is impressive. I still miss a lot of things about my Bonanza, though.

John

My Cirrus initial was 5 flights and a bit over 15 hours. It ended up costing more than my PPL with the higher rental rate. They don’t play around.

Insurance is driving it.

Pretty much all of them want pilots to go through the Cirrus Transition training program. At 9 hours you were at the low end of the time spent. Typically it is 10-15 hours, even for proficient pilots.

Yeah, day time VFR you probably didn't need anywhere near that much, but insurance wants the boxes checked for everyone.

Cirrus accidents rates originally were too high. Too many people jumping from a trainer to a SR22 and getting into trouble. Add in, "real pilots don't use the chute, they land the plane" and it was a mess. Between the training and getting people to use the chute when in trouble it has turned around; even insurance has found it cheaper to pay out for the plane than for dead people (plus a totaled plane).

You have this backwards.

The new training program did not actually increase chute usage, the rate of chute deployment per flight hour is about the same, maybe even a touch less than it was before the training program started back in 2012. What it did was decrease the NEED for the chute by helping pilots identify they were on a trajectory to need it and thus give the pilot time to avoid using it.

Basically, the new training program was focused on "chute early". But if you can identify you need the chute early enough, then you don't actually need it because you can change the circumstances. Just about every Cirrus accident can be prevented if you go back in time to some point where the pilot can change the outcome.

As usual, a gizmo, the chute, did not improve safety on its own, but giving the pilots extra training did. This effect has been repeated numerous times in aviation safety.

If we subjected Bonanza pilots to 15 hours of check out and training, their safety record would improve as well. You don't need a chute to do that.

Mike C.

This is the spirt, if not the letter, of type-specific training advocated and provided by organizations such as ABS (BPPP).

If you own or fly a Beechcraft product, the annual cost of an ABS membership, which includes free access to the updated online ground schools, is a small investment.

The $450 for the BPPP initial (about 4 hours of flight time) and the complementary recurrent program ($300 for about 2 hours) are also wise investments. For details, see the ABS Pilot Training page.

That’s pretty ridiculous Kirk. I borrowed a friend’s new one with no check out and thought it’s a very nice, easy to fly plane as long as you previously knew how to work a G1000 system. If you haven’t flown G1000s and Lancair sort of airplanes then I understand a few hours. I’m sure it has mainly to do with insurance and not actually flying the airplane.

Icon training program is similar and it’s the easiest flying seaplane I’ve ever flown.

I like the Cirrus.

I've been checked out in two Cirrus; an SR20 GTS and a SR 22 G3 (both Avidyne and steam). Both were about an hour of basic airwork and some pattern with maybe three landings. I had never been in a Cirrus before the SR20. There's nothing especially difficult about them. There are some differences in the cockpit and avionics, but they fly like an airplane. Three full days of training for a checkout? You can get a type rating for a little more. I'm not sure how they find enough to cover in that time.