Cirrus over California

Finally, finally I am signed off to go flying the SR20 around California. It's not that it took me so many hours, but it did take me several cancelled days until I got a good shot this week. Surprising, given the California weather, but this January & February have seen a lot of rain on the days I was available.

In case you remember that I was taking G1000 sim lessons to get ready for the Cessna 206, personal circumstances made a 4-seater in the Bay area quite OK. Could still have gone with the Cessna 182 of course, but since I expect to be flying a lot at night, and because the area is rather hilly, the SR20 with its parachute sounded like a better idea. It's a wonderful plane. I had flown about 10 hours in one in Chicago, but I'd forgotten exactly how wonderful it is. And what was new was the Avidyne glass cockpit display. I think I do like it better than the G1000 (although the G1000 is more integrated and the integrated autopilot apparently is fantastic), partly because I am used to the Garmin 430 already.

It took a while to get comfortable with the plane, and WVFC does a great job getting you ready for it. I feel much more ready and confident than I did flying the SR20 around Chicago. The big 'checkout' I did this week was a good combination of VFR and IFR flight. First a take-off and the usual air work: slow flight, approach stall, departure stall and steep turns. We then did a hold at TRACY (with a parallel entry no lesS!) as we tried to get Norcal Approach's attention for an ILS clearance. We did an auto-pilot coupled ILS into Stockton to a landing, followed by special landings: half flaps, no flaps, engine-out in the pattern, go around (all done at Stockton), and then a hand-flown ILS into Livermore, ending in a low approach and low pass over the runway. Setting up for the GPS into Palo Alto, the engine failed (not really, of course), and I discovered that almost all the green fields were plowed the wrong way! Back in the direction of PAO, the PFD failed (yes, lots of stuff on this flight!) and I popped the circuit breakers and hand-flew based on GPS track. Not too accurately, unfortunately, which got me a nasty remark from Approach, who didn't know I was having this simulated emergency, so I forgive them :) All went well when we got a direct clearance to the initial approach fix, and I could let the autopilot take over. Uneventful landing at PAO, and happy as a clam that all is well and I can go flying by myself now - I can't wait! Unfortunately I'm of to Japan, Korea and Australia, then vacation in Curacao, so I won't be able to for a while...

The great thing about all of this is that I feel really confident about flying this plane. It's wonderful, fast enough, handles really nicely and will just be a blast. I'm planning on little trips in California (that I'll be plotting over the next weeks) such as Sacramento, and LA, and possibly a trip to Vegas to meet up with my wife flying in from Chicago. Wouldn't that be nice!