From:	Bill Marvel [mailto:bmarvel@ix.netcom.com]
Sent:	Saturday, 13 May 2000 2:05
Subject:	Cirrus trip from Duluth to Hayward

First off, you picked a top-notch guy in Robin Leach. I had never met him before, but now have spent all day for six consecutive days with him working ice, thunderstorms, ILSs in 300 feet of overcast, airplane paperwork problems, airline connection problems, a couple of beers before dinner, etc. and have gotten to know him quite well. He is a top-notch airplane driver, a super-nice guy and is very thorough in doing the aircraft ferry work for you. Don't know how you found him, but you certainly found a winner.

As to your aircraft, I am just stunned at its appearance, performance, handling, design and ease of operation. Like most people in aviation, I had seen many pictures and articles and even ran into the real thing last year at Page, Arizona when I met the very first guy to take delivery of one. In fact, he had sold his Tiger to buy the Cirrus and knew me from back in the AYA somewhere, although I did not recognize him. I did not fly in that aircraft, however, as we were both going in opposite directions and just ended up at the same airport buying gas. I did get to sit in the plane, look at in a little bit, and was dumbfounded at his quick demonstration of its avionics. All that has now changed, of course, since I just spent about 12 flight hours in yours.

We arrived at the factory after a horror story of trying to get to Duluth from Nashville. Rob had brought an Aerostar 601P up from Auckland and detanked it in Hayward. I flew up in my Tiger a day later to meet up with him to take the Aerostar to Nashville, Tennessee. The weather was dismal that day and I broke out right at minimums at Hayward on the localizer-DME approach in the rain. It took us the next two days to get to Nashville due to both the long distance and thunderstorms and that is when things began to fall apart. Rob's friend dropped us off at the main Nashville airport (we had landed at a smaller one), where we split up on different airlines going to Minneapolis. The plan was to rejoin there, rent a car and drive three hours to Duluth. Rob was supposed to arrive first, but his connection in Chicago was delayed by the same thunderstorms through which we flew the Aerostar earlier in the day before they intensified. Since I went via Atlanta, I ended up getting there first since there were no weather delays, not knowing that Rob had not yet arrived. I expected him to meet me at the gate and when I did not see him, I started wondering what was taking place.

I only knew that he was coming in on Vanguard Airlines, but there was no one at their ticket counter. A call to their 800 number revealed that the plane had not yet left Chicago, so I started waiting. It was 10 PM, the huge airport was almost empty, and I was sitting all alone by the proposed arrival gate. More calls to Vanguard led to some vague promises and finally, after midnight the plane arrived. Rob got off along with about 20 other tired and disgusted travelers. A long walk to the Hertz counter revealed that his reservation had been lost and that there were no more cars available! Went to National and got something we could use for the next day with a drop off fee in Duluth. We headed up the road a ways and finally got to bed at a motel about 2:30 AM.

Up four and a half hours later, we drove the remaining hour to Duluth and arrived at the factory. My first job was to ask to see Sherri Reynolds as you requested, and she was happy to see that you had bought one of their airplanes.

It was time to see the plane (and I have many pictures that I will email and send later). Rob did the inspection along with a factory rep prior to getting into the purchase paperwork. Since everything with the plane was in order, he finished all but one of the papers in the front office and his company was ALMOST the the proud owner of YOUR airplane. More on that in awhile, since paperwork regarding the transaction is now delaying things a little. (If you thought this entire pickup and ferry situation was simple, you were terribly wrong. It is a bureaucratic nightmare. Since the Cirrus was not certified in Australia, the company could not sell it as a VH airplane. Also, it could not legally sell a U.S registered plane to a non-U.S. owner. Therefore, it had to go to a U.S. intermediary until it was certified in Oz. Good news, however-the Cirrus is now certified by the Aussie CAA-got positive confirmation from Cirrus execs just yesterday). Anyway, the plane just sparkled. The leather interior and detailed appointments were flawless, and the exterior looked like it glowed with a million candlepower. I don't often see new airplanes, and I just drooled over this one. It was an airplane on the outside and a Mercedes Benz on the inside. I sat in the front and the back and couldn't believe how big and how comfortable it was. The factory guy pointed out one design feature after another and I realized that this was the state of the art in light aircraft, period. But seeing was one thing; flying was another.

It was time to get Rob checked out and with their permission, I hopped in back. Part of the ckeckout flight was to complete the one paper that I mentioned above had been delayed. In order to avoid the Minnesota sales tax to a non-Minnesota purchaser, the final sale paper was signed in Wisconsin, at the airport where Rob made his first landing. This is government nonsense at its worst, but is done routinely, at least until the new law is passed in Minnesota to correct this stupidity.

We both got a quick review of starting procedures (the checklist is on the TV screen!) and a briefing on the use of the Garmin nav/com/GPS units in the plane. I will tell you with no hesitation that the use of the avionics is the hardest part of flying the plane. It isn't difficult, but you cannot just get in and figure it all out while taxiing for takeoff. There is some study involved. We went through the pre-start, start, taxi, runup and takeoff checklists and flew for about an hour. Rob made three excellent landings and did one ILS for practice. Thank goodness for that, as you will read later. In Wisconsin, his company became the official owner of the plane and by the time we got back to Duluth, he was as checked out as he could be. This is not a difficult airplane to operate. In fact, I would not hesitate to take any experienced Tiger pilot, tell him or her a few of the numbers invovled, toss them the keys and say, "have fun." You do not need any formal checkout in this plane if you have flown a variety of other aircraft, including the Tiger. It is just not hard to fly. Adapting to the side stick? Two minutes if you're sharp; five tops if you're not. It is as natural as touching your nose.

After the acceptance inspection, paperwork, check-out flight, and final purchase paperwork in Wisconsin, we faced a dilemma. The weather forcast was bad for the next day and the factory pilot recommended we head south right away to stay away from the coming front. We both were really tired and did not look forward to flying that day. Ironically, the place we were going to head for was Kansas City, where we could have stayed with my parents. We still wanted to do a factory tour but time was getting tight. The weather was coming and it was time to make a decision. Stay or go? Stay and do the tour or go and fly tired. Rob and I are kindred spirits. We both decided the same thing. Tour the factory, get some sleep and take on the weather gods the next morning. That's what we did.

I'll skip the details except to say a couple of things. We were taken through by the Director of Communications, who was totally candid about financial matters, staffing, orders and the like. The company looks like a going concern, and has about 500 orders for this plane. It will have a lot more, based on my experience with the product. They are well underway with the 300 HP version, which they showed us, and with an upcoming retractable. They did not allow us to take pictures of anything inside except your plane for proprietary reasons, but did not hestitate to disclose details of any questions we had. Many at the factory were interested in meeting the "pilot who was flying this across the ocean," and I think were impressed at the normalness of Rob. He's a thorough, methodical person, I would guess in his late 50s, who exudes the persona of an economics professor more than the devil-may-care adventurer. He's a confident guy, and it came through in his discussions with the factory folks. They are now working two shifts, soon to be three, and plan to manufacture one plane per day. Their limiting factor is fuselage and wing tooling, which they are now in the process of creating. Once they have the needed tooling, they will be able to meet the plane per day schedule. Frankly, if they don't stumble somewhere, I suspect these folks will own the future of light airplane manufacturing. They're that good. Tour complete, it was time to head for the hotel. We were really beat and needed dinner and a good night's sleep. We would take on the weather challenges the following morning. And speaking of that, it is now late Saturday night and I'm ready to call it a day. Will send this and continue tomorrow. Cheers, Bill