Cirrus chutes

[digits_]

Then it begs the question that if you desired such a service, why didn't you go for it? This falls into my main theory that flight training is primarily selected by convinience of training above all other considerations. Flight schools succeed primarily based upon location, location, location, if the market warrants it and can otherwise have an exceedingly poor product.

For financial reasons mostly. The school with the glass cockpit was quite a bit cheaper than the one with the traditional cockpit. Quality was, judging from ex students, +- the same.

[Colonel Sanders]

you just described my battered-but-beloved Dog Ship

No Corinthian Leather interior?

[Colonel Sanders]

THE BRAINS OF A GNAT

[Rookie50]

The cirrus layout and tools are awesome. Really; if you understand them. Regretfully; at some point -- perhaps not anymore -- the marketing was the tools made it the easiest plane to fly; like driving a car. Nothing is further from the truth.

I've been up a couple of times in a SR22; awesome plane. But its a whole lotta AC for a low timer. High stall speed; and very slippery. But I am conservative. If I wanted one ( I don't) I MIGHT be ready now at 500 HRS TT. I think you should graduate in your airplanes. Old school?

[Colonel Sanders]

the marketing was the tools made it the easiest plane to fly; like driving a car

I blame Popular Mechanics and their "flying car" concept for that.

But its a whole lotta AC for a low timer

Sorry, I don't buy into that. It's all about the quality of
the training. I have soloed people in the Pitts S-2B which
is a LOT more of a handful. Keep in mind that the pilot
of the RCAF F-18 you see this summer at airshows
across Canada, flying high G aerobatics down low,
doesn't have enough hours to get a job flying King Air

Most civilian training is really bad. Horribly inefficient.
That's what's causing accidents. Not hours in the
logbook.

Let's face it, if some bozo struts up to you and tells
you that he has 50,000 hours, I would wager that
he really has 1,000 hours, fifty times over and over
again.

Food for thought: the helmet cam in this video is
affixed to the head of a 19 yr old with 300TT, flying
wing:



You think he could fly a plastic nosewheel aircraft
straight and level?

The difference between he and the clowns crashing
the Cirruses is the training they have received.

But no one cares about flying well. They don't
need to - just keep pulling that chute handle!

[Shiny Side Up]

Sorry, I don't buy into that. It's all about the quality of
the training.

Very true. Cirrus as a company is also partly responsible for this since they've put together "Scenario based training" syllabuses so people can buy new Cirruses and learn on said aircraft. Its debatable from what I've seen how much of the standard exercise practice goes on, since the main focus is making the new pilot feel like he's doing something he feels is constructive instead, like going on a golf trip. It reminds me of a frequent request I get to train people: "Can we fly somewhere I have to go for business and build the hours along the way?" Which is totally missing the point, but I suspect that there are many instructors who love this sort of shit, since it lets them waste a lot of time of the student and build hours -to which the student is totally cool with, he's getting to go where he wants and is also under the impression he's building his hours. By Thor I hate that term.

But no one cares about flying well.

At the end of the day this is the problem, regardless of the aircraft. People flock to machines like the Cirrus since they feel the tech can compensate for less skill.

[digits_]

It reminds me of a frequent request I get to train people: "Can we fly somewhere I have to go for business and build the hours along the way?" Which is totally missing the point, but I suspect that there are many instructors who love this sort of shit, since it lets them waste a lot of time of the student and build hours -to which the student is totally cool with, he's getting to go where he wants and is also under the impression he's building his hours. By Thor I hate that term.

You might be describing me here. Why is this wrong ? If I had planned to fly to airport X, but the student wants to fly to airport Y because his parents live nearby, why is that wrong ?
If the student needs to prepare a navigation flight and he asks to fly over his house instead of a water tower, why is that wrong ? It makes him more motivated and he prepares the flight more precise because he really wants to find his house.

Love to hear your point of view!

[Colonel Sanders]

"Can we fly somewhere I have to go for business and build the hours along the way?"

Sigh. What people don't understand is that if you
are to have efficient, effective training, you need
focus.

Every flight (for me, at least), has a focus or mission,
which could be:

- flight training (initial/recurrent)
- maintenance test flight
- photo flight
- cross-country transportation
- pax carrying

etc. If you are doing one, you are NOT doing the others.

Also implicit in that statement is that an hour in your
logbook is equivalent to any other hour in your logbook.
Pilots assert that all the time, and it's complete nonsense.
I routinely fly 0.1 air time doing surface acro. That's
much harder work than dozing off and on, watching
the auto-pilot fly cross-country for hours.

As you say, people are happy with really bad flight
training, because they expect the aircraft to pick
up the slack. That's a good way to get killed, unless
you make a habit of routinely pulling the chute handle,
as Cirrus seems to recommend

[Rookie50]

Sorry, I don't buy into that. It's all about the quality of
the training.

Very true. Cirrus as a company is also partly responsible for this since they've put together "Scenario based training" syllabuses so people can buy new Cirruses and learn on said aircraft. Its debatable from what I've seen how much of the standard exercise practice goes on, since the main focus is making the new pilot feel like he's doing something he feels is constructive instead, like going on a golf trip. It reminds me of a frequent request I get to train people: "Can we fly somewhere I have to go for business and build the hours along the way?" Which is totally missing the point, but I suspect that there are many instructors who love this sort of shit, since it lets them waste a lot of time of the student and build hours -to which the student is totally cool with, he's getting to go where he wants and is also under the impression he's building his hours. By Thor I hate that term.

But no one cares about flying well.

At the end of the day this is the problem, regardless of the aircraft. People flock to machines like the Cirrus since they feel the tech can compensate for less skill.

Exactly. The tech means I don't have to be as good a pilot. That is the belief.

[Rookie50]

"Can we fly somewhere I have to go for business and build the hours along the way?"

Sigh. What people don't understand is that if you
are to have efficient, effective training, you need
focus.

Every flight (for me, at least), has a focus or mission,
which could be:

- flight training (initial/recurrent)
- maintenance test flight
- photo flight
- cross-country transportation
- pax carrying

etc. If you are doing one, you are NOT doing the others.

Also implicit in that statement is that an hour in your
logbook is equivalent to any other hour in your logbook.
Pilots assert that all the time, and it's complete nonsense.
I routinely fly 0.1 air time doing surface acro. That's
much harder work than dozing off and on, watching
the auto-pilot fly cross-country for hours.

As you say, people are happy with really bad flight
training, because they expect the aircraft to pick
up the slack. That's a good way to get killed, unless
you make a habit of routinely pulling the chute handle,
as Cirrus seems to recommend

CS I agree. 1.0 logged means very little; its the focus applied that will determine the value of that 1.0

[Shiny Side Up]

You might be describing me here. Why is this wrong ? If I had planned to fly to airport X, but the student wants to fly to airport Y because his parents live nearby, why is that wrong ?
If the student needs to prepare a navigation flight and he asks to fly over his house instead of a water tower, why is that wrong ? It makes him more motivated and he prepares the flight more precise because he really wants to find his house.

Love to hear your point of view!

The Colonel hits it on the head, its all about focus. Occasionally you can do this with students, but you'll find it a pretty slippery slope. In most cases the training aspect rapidly ceases to be the focus of the flight. What do you think is going to happen when they get over their house? "Hey you fly for a bit I want to take some pictures! Can you circle back? I think I see the wife in the yard. Hey I get to count all this time right?" What do you think the student takes away from this flight? What's worse is that you'll have trouble saying no to the student in the future. "I know we're supposed to go out and practice stalls but could we do it over to my parent's place to drop something off?" Again, where do you think they'll be focused on? This very obviously impacts people's ability to retain and learn stuff when there's competition for their attention.

Something that very often needs to be curbed with students is their assumption that they need to show up and build the hours. Because there's instructors who participate, its another contributing factor to the high times to completion we see.

Another thing to think about is when students are supposed to be practicing items solo, if up to that point there's been a lot of sightseeing and convenience trips done, do you think they're going to be all business?

[digits_]

[...]

Good points, thanks!

[akoch]

Well, this also implies that you are dealing with a not very intelligent student. You still can do such flights, and actually make them useful for the student (ex: cruise flying by attitude and reference points takes a lot of time to finesse and it is unlikely to be done during the 45-hour intense training). But the student must understand that such flying does not count towards or substitutes the min 45h time required to learn and practice the exercises. It only supplements it. If he does not get it, it is a different problem altogether.

[Colonel Sanders]

My problem with joyriding around is that the time
would be MUCH better spent on the fundamentals.

For example, cover up the dash entirely before engine
start. No airspeed, no altitude, no gyros, no nav.
Nothing except perhaps an audible stall warning horn.

With the dash entirely covered/blank, taxi, take off,
climb, fly to the practice area, and level off at 3000 AGL
(or thereabouts). Set up for slow flight. Drive around
with the stall warning on. Turns. Descents. Climbs.
Then do some stalls, again with no instruments. Then,
still with no panel, fly back to the airport, join the circuit
with no altimeter, and fly an approach and land with no
airspeed indicator.

You give me ONE HOUR - just ONE FLIGHT - with
these Cirrus twats and I will massively improve their
skill.

Or, you can just joyride around for an hour.

[Beefitarian]

Haaaaayy gurl frendz! I'm here to snowball a couple of thoughts. Buckle up!

Don't be afraid, this kind of post from me is mostly question even if I put it out like a suggestion.

"Can we fly somewhere I have to go for business and build the hours along the way?"

Sigh. What people don't understand is that if you
are to have efficient, effective training, you need
focus.

Also implicit in that statement is that an hour in your
logbook is equivalent to any other hour in your logbook.
Pilots assert that all the time, and it's complete nonsense.
I routinely fly 0.1 air time doing surface acro. That's
much harder work than dozing off and on, watching
the auto-pilot fly cross-country for hours.

As you say, people are happy with really bad flight
training, because they expect the aircraft to pick
up the slack. That's a good way to get killed, unless
you make a habit of routinely pulling the chute handle,
as Cirrus seems to recommend

CS I agree. 1.0 logged means very little; its the focus applied that will determine the value of that 1.0

One of the problems I had with CPL training was I never made sense of "I don't need to spin this thing. I need to show the particular instructor his version of a spin recovery." I spent a lot of hours frustrated that the 172 wouldn't spin for me.



My thought is there's two ways to give good leading answers to the, can we go somewhere fun/productive in my opinion.

1. Sorry, no you can not, but that is exactly the sort of thing you can do by yourself with your PPL. Right now we are trying to focus on skills needed to get you there. Patience young padwan/(old friend).

The second is of course only an option if they are ready to do a dual cross country. (I realize it might be crazy, let me know.) Just because they get to pick the destination, it can still be a focused all business training type of flight.

2. "I don't know, can you? I have to warn you, I must be back that day, if the weather prevents us from getting back, I need to fly home and back to the plane later to pick it up on a commercial flight. So it has be to an airport with commercial service. Grab your VNC and a flight log sheet, pre flight the trip. I need a $200 per-diem, in addition I will be on the clock from when you bring me the paper work until we get back inside here after the trip. This could quickly cost a few thousand dollars that you won't have to pay, if you wait until you finish your PPL. You can't do it solo on your student license because you need to return right away on those trips."

I don't think it would be bad or counter productive at all. It will give them motivation to plan for a perceived reason and it talks to their wallet. "$200 plus $60/ hour while I'm on my business, possible $2800 airfare, maybe I'll wait to do this." If they are really in a panic about flying somewhere alone and have the money they might do it once, then realize they can do it themselves.

[Shiny Side Up]

Well, this also implies that you are dealing with a not very intelligent student.

No, rather it implies that the student has no idea of how training/learning works. I will say that I've discovered most of these things through experience, from when I was a less wise instructor. Lots of things sound like good ideas on the face, as an instructor you want to have your students somewhat enjoy their training, so I understand why many instructors are probably drawn to the whole scenario based set ups. In practice though it invites a ton of problems into people learning how to do things. It also invites problems into the student/instructor relationship. To me it always conveys that you as the instructor feel that air excersise items are less important than just joyriding, having fun or the student's convinience.

What's the more important objective here? Become proficient at flying or for it to fit the picture of what the student think flight training should be? Sometimes you got to shatter their illusions. I recall one student I had, on the first few flight lessons he had, he would pack a lunch with us. For some reason he was under the impression that we would be largely cruising around, enjoying the scenery while we "built hours" and he figured he might want a snack while we were engaging in this leisurely activity. I think on about the fourth flight he realised he wasn't going to have time to get at that sandwich. I debated on stealing his food some times, but as cruel of a person as I am, I think that would have been too much for him to take. Funny guy, If I remember rightly he cried when he passed his flight test.

One of the problems I had with CPL training was I never made sense

I could see where that would be a problem.

[Beefitarian]

ZING!

[Colonel Sanders]

he cried when he passed his flight test

You taught Bubba Watson to fly? Awesome!



Recently he invented the hovercraft golf cart.
On April 1st. But it wasn't a joke.



You simply can't make this stuff up.

[akoch]

Well, how timely - here is what just came in to my email box:

Not a Pilot? Not a Problem.
Introducing Cirrus On Demand.

The Cirrus Life. It's Not Just For Pilots. Increased productivity. More face time. More family time. There are many powerful lifestyle and business advantages of personal flying in a Cirrus aircraft. For non-pilots or aspiring pilots, Cirrus On Demand™ is a transformational ownership solution that puts the general aviation lifestyle at your command with your very own pilot to fly and manage your Cirrus.

This turnkey service is an affordable option that can be combined with the purchase of a new 2013 Cirrus aircraft.

Your Very Own Flight Operations Department. For those who desire the lifestyle benefits of the Cirrus Life, but aren't interested in tackling the many tasks associated with managing an aircraft, Cirrus On Demand makes it simple by taking the hassle out of enjoying your new Cirrus.

The program puts your very own experienced, certified Cirrus pilot at your disposal for business and personal travel. As your dedicated pilot, available on your schedule, your aircraft is ready to go when you are.

Learn To Fly Options. For those who have always dreamed of learning to fly, the revolutionary Cirrus On Demand program also gives you the option to get your pilot's license. With a highly trained Cirrus flight instructor in the right seat, even a routine business trip becomes a step toward becoming a licensed pilot.

[Shiny Side Up]

I see lots about convinience and "lifestyle", nothing about being a good pilot.

I rest my case.

[akoch]

From what I see it is marketed as an expensive nice shiny toy to the well off folks. The selling points are they convenience, "simplicity", lifestyle, prestige, "safety" etc.

The company does not seem to have any interest in flying itself, or piloting skills, the fun and challenging part of it. The marketing and airplane specifics follow this vision. I've yet to see many people who enjoyed hand-flying a Cirrus or going out for spins on it.

[Shiny Side Up]

I suppose I just don't get it then. The whole idea of the Cirrus seems to revolve around conveying the illusion that you're sort of an aviation guy, but with no real interest in flying or airplanes for that matter. I find it bizarre someone would pay to be essentially chauffeured around in one, surely if one can afford it, you can ride in a bit more style, unless of course you like to pretend to be a pilot.

the revolutionary Cirrus On Demand program also gives you the option to get your pilot's license. With a highly trained Cirrus flight instructor in the right seat, even a routine business trip becomes a step toward becoming a licensed pilot.

This really reinforces my previous point, and hence why lots of these guys who own these things suck at flying them. People getting into places where they need to pull the chute is precisely what resluts from this convinience oriented scenario based training. I guess as long as you're cool doing it, I just want no part of it.

[Beefitarian]

Should I attempt a CPL and start a babysitting service for pilot/new plane owners? Would I need a CPL, since they could put me down as a passenger in the log book?

I'd just be a consultant. Obviously need to call it something cool, "Safe pilot international." Show pilots how to do their flight log, navigate, tune the radio correctly to contact the right ATC people and build confidence while, "Going where they want to go." PPL holders and higher. I could probably end up with new CPLs once word got out.

Got the license book, afraid to go somewhere with a real plane?
Know how to fly but lack cross country confidence?
I'll show you how to get places with style and grace like an ATPL holder.
20 years+ experience pretending to know what I'm doing and going on fun trips in light singles.


Citizen brand blue angel loaner watch included in certain affordable package deals.

Yes, I'm bored today. I even phoned someone about a real job earlier.

[Rookie50]

From what I see it is marketed as an expensive nice shiny toy to the well off folks. The selling points are they convenience, "simplicity", lifestyle, prestige, "safety" etc.

The company does not seem to have any interest in flying itself, or piloting skills, the fun and challenging part of it. The marketing and airplane specifics follow this vision. I've yet to see many people who enjoyed hand-flying a Cirrus or going out for spins on it.

It's not an enjoyable plane to hand fly, IMO. That is one reason I have little interest in one.

I did'nt become a pilot, to learn how to push buttons well.

[Beefitarian]

It's not an enjoyable plane to hand fly, IMO. That is one reason I have little interest in one.

That side yoke seems sucky. I don't even feel like trying to fly one. Never mind paying to buy it.