Never flown one. What in particular makes it $600-$800 an hour "nice"?

Times do change. There was the time I went into a place to check out in a 310 I wanted for one trip. The manager said, "Cool, if you do that, you'll be checked out in all our fleet below the 310." Regardless of brand or model, by the way. Then he looked at my logbook and noticed how much 310 time I had, and offered, "Hey, how about you pay for the plane time, and you check out my CFI in the 310 and we won't charge the dual 'instruction' and then you'll both be checked out in the 310/."

Another time, I wanted a checkout in an Aztec which just came on line at the school where I taught. The chief pilot said, "I don't have any Aztec time, so how about you and I split the cost of the 10-hour insurance checkout requirement and we'll both be checked out for half price."

Of course, I happily took the deal.

$800 an hour for a Cirrus??? Is that typical?

This summer I was renting a DA42 twin for about $475 an hour wet. However, they did tell me I would need 25 hours in it for insurance purposes before I could fly it solo. They also had a full-cockpit DA42 sim for $75 an hour "club price". Didn't ask if sim time counts towards the 25 hours.

Never flown one. What in particular makes it $600-$800 an hour "nice"?

I dry lease a TBM for less than $800/hr. good for them if they can get it- but there are better options.

My Cirrus transition training in 2005 was 5.6 hrs over 4 separate flights. I remember thinking it seemed excessive at the time.
I had just under 500 hrs TT.

That was a brand new 2005 model, don't remember what we paid for it, but that amount of training satisfied insurance then.

Doesn't sound terrible, Gary. What all is included in the dry lease? Is liability and hull insurance included or do you have to provide your own?

Now that’s a deal I wish I could find.

Doesn't sound terrible, Gary. What all is included in the dry lease? Is liability and hull insurance included or do you have to provide your own?

Does your TBM have a sister?

Fixed it for you. Actually found the Icon very nice to fly on water, not so much on land. After about 20 minutes, instructor was sort of saying “so what do you want to do for the remaining three check out hours”? Just say we had fun.

Ciri are very nice flying machines; only have about three hours, but not sure what the fuss is about. Also not sure what’s so special about a Bonanza that it requires hours of checkout; think I had 90 hours when first flew one. Maybe that’s heretical on this board…