From:	Bill Marvel [mailto:bmarvel@ix.netcom.com]
Sent:	Sunday, 14 May 2000 4:20
Subject:	Cirrus trip from Duluth to Hayward

1. Tooling. I made it sound like there was no fuselage or wing tooling and that they were just now creating it. This probably made you wonder how your plane was manufactured. Worry not! What I should have said is that they are busy making MORE wing and fuselage tooling so that they can run two production lines at the same time. They have 500 or so orders and need to get two full lines up and running 24 hours a day to meet the demand.

2. Checkout. There were a number of specific items that the factory pilot told Rob during the one-hour flight/paperwork "cross country" to neighboring Wisconsin:

A. Most important is that the rotation during takeoff is very slight, almost imperceptable. If you rotate as much as you do with any other airplane, the stall warning goes off and your initial climb rate is slowed. Rotation is at 60, and is just ever so slight. Once the plane starts to fly, normal climb speed is 80. It goes up great then.

B. Also, 1/2 flaps are used for takeoff. There are two positions, half and full. And that is one of the problems operationally, as we found out. Getting it slowed to 120 knots IAS for flaps 1/2 is a chore. The plane is fast and slippery and does not want to slow down. Descent planning for 500 FPM way far out will allow slowing at pattern altitude where you can get out the first half of flaps. Once you get to 100 knots the second half comes out, and slowing to that speed is no problem. The challenge is in getting to 120. It is not uncommon to see 170 knots IAS coming downhill in a gradual descent. If you hit the pattern at this speed you can plan on turning base about halfway to Lord Howe Island as you wait for it to slow down. Be forewarned!!

C. The checklists, performance charts, etc. all are in the database and you bring them up on the Arnav, 747 style! Really neat.

D. The plane does NOT have a Stormscope. We were under the initial impression that it had one but was encountering maintenance problems. Not so. I think they were going to send one to you for later installation but there is not one in the plane now. Evidently it was not available for installation in the early serial numbers. You probably know more about this than we do, but thought I would pass it on.

E. Final is 80 with full flaps.

F. Autopilot. Neither of us had flown the system 30 and unfortunately, the factory guy forgot to tell us that the button we thought turned it on actually just set altitude hold. (This was one of the reasons we came back 10 minutes after our initial departure the following day. More on that in a moment.) The system is actually very simple to operate and has heading hold, command turn, low and high accuracy tracking, as well as altitude hold. We used all of them and they all work well. I may buy one for my Tiger, in fact, unless I get in line for a Cirrus....

G. The avionics are everything. You need to learn them for sure before you head off to fly somewhere. The number two is just a GPS/Com, which the factory pilot had not seen before. Number one is GPS/Com/Nav. The number one radio is hard wired to the HSI and number two is hard wired to the separate nav head. That means that you can never have VOR or localizer on the number two head because they do not exist in the number two radio. Probably no big deal in your part of the world since you have the international database and all approaches in the airplane. Here, however, your database was useless since it does not incorporate any U.S. approaches. We had to do that stuff with the nav portion of the number one radio.

OK, so much for the checkout update and clarification of yesterday's message. Let's move on to the good part-flying in YOUR airplane! The next morning we awoke to more rain and low clouds. I checked weather channel and knew right away that the Kansas City option was out. Even at 7 AM they had severe thunderstorm watches out for the route south with possible tornados and hail. Duluth was just low IFR at 300 overcast and a mile in rain but the boomers were still way off to the southwest and heading toward us. Got to the factory at 7 AM and went immediately to the flight office to get on the weather computer and look at the big picture. Radar showed really bad stuff to the south and southwest and a new system was just hitting the Pacific northwest. Our only real shot was going west a couple hundred miles and then dropping off to the south behind the severe weather. Only problem was that this was a brand new airplane, neither of us was very familiar with it, the wx was low and Rob had only an hour at the controls while I had not yet flown anywhere but in the back seat. Also, the ceilings all the way to the destination were no better than 700 feet with many airports reporting less than 500. No worries, mate!

I filed GPS direct to Bismarck, North Dakota at 6000 feet, my first GPS flight plan ever. The factory told us they get cleared direct on GPS routes all the time from there and we hoped to also. We started up and spent some time getting things set up and reviewing avionics procedures. Rob would fly and I would handle the communications with ATC, just like we did in the Aerostar. I ran the checklist from the Arnav screen and we got our clearance-yep, GPS direct just like I filed. We were cleared for takeoff and slid into the 300 foot overcast. All was well with light rain and a smooth ride in the clouds. When I switched to departure and told him we were climbing to 6000 feet he said to confirm the transponder was on. It was, but no reply light was flashing. I told him we would play with it a bit and about that time Rob said the autopilot would not turn on. I tried it from my stick (remember that we were misinformed of its operation at the time), also with no luck. I asked the controller if he could skin paint us at all and he said yes, which surprised me given that it is a composite airplane. That was all the hint we needed. No autopilot and no transponder with a good ILS and the factory 10 minutes away was a no brainer. Told him we wanted to go back right away and he headed us for the localizer. I set up the radios, remembering to go from GPS on the number one radio to VLOC for the ILS. We had about a 20 knot crosswind on the localizer so Rob had quite a correction set in as we headed down the glideslope. I called the altitudes down toward minimums and looked for the approach lights as he stayed on the gauges.

At 300 feet AGL I began to see the sequenced flashers and then just above minimums the end of the runway. I told Rob to look up and land and he did. The factory was surprised to see us back so soon and we told them the problems. We then learned that the autopilot is turned on and set to all modes except altitude hold by pressing the turn command knob on the turn coordinator. The button on the stick is only a toggle for altitude hold on and off. That is why we could not engage it. We had the impression that the stick button took the autopilot through all of its modes but that was not the case. Then to the transponder. They saw it in the standby mode where I set it after landing and of course thought we forgot to turn it on. That was hardly the case so they looked further. When a puff of smoke came out of the transponder they finally believed us!! A new transponder box, new output check and log book entry took an hour and a half and we were once again on our way.

The wx had not changed and the thunderstorms were still safely off in the distance. Up to 6000 we went, set the autopilot to maintain that and to track the GPS to Bismarck. It was smooth and so thick we could not see the wingtips. In fact, we later found out that the wings are so white that it is also hard to see ice on them. There is no temp probe through the canopy like the Tiger, so you don't really have any small collection device out there to first accumulate ice. Yes, your plane has seen ice. This was later that day descending out of 12,000 over the Wasatch mountains into Ogden, Utah. More on that in a bit.

We stayed at 6000 at 75% power to continue engine break-in. After awhile we came out of the clouds into a between layers situation and could see the dark area off to the south. A check with flight watch's real time weather radar confirmed the visual scene. We had come far enough west to get around the storms and could start heading more to the south. I amended the destination to Pierre, South Dakota since it had an ILS and was close enough to give us a good fuel reserve. Wx there was better and we broke out about 800 AGL. Got gas and hit the potty and refiled direct to Pueblo, Colorado for lunch and more gas. Got the direct IFR clearance again (that's pretty neat!) and set it into the GPS. Off we went, right into 30 knot headwinds.

That got old pretty quickly and a recheck of weather on flight watch showed not great but flyable VFR weather on a direct shot toward Hayward, still nearly 1000 miles away. We amended the destination to Cheyenne, Wyoming, where Rob landed in 26G30 winds right down the runway. There was a sigmet out for severe turbulence over the Rockies but it was for an area starting just to our south and heading all the way into Arizona. Since we were north of it we just decided to head across after a late lunch at the airport. Airborne again we went up to 10,500 feet VFR and pointed the nose toward Hayward. The two GPSs are really nice since we used number 2 on Hayward for the big picture of where we wanted to ultimately go and used number 1 for where we had to go on the next leg for gas/terrain/weather considerations. That way we always knew the bearing toward the ultimate destination while heading toward interim waypoints.

We flew as I usually do, not really having any interim destination in mind but just heading as close to the ultimate destination as possible. West of Laramie we went into the top of a haze layer that turned out to be a snow squall and had to do a 180 to get back out of it. A 10 minute divert straight north put us around it and into about 100 miles visibility to the west. Back toward Hayward we went, knowing that the wx between us and Utah was still good. We picked up flight following with center so there was someone who knew where we were and could issue an IFR if we needed one. I almost always fly that way-VFR for maximum utility and with a radar controller there to give me an IFR clearance if I need one or to call out the search and rescue folks if I tell them I no longer have an engine. The former has happened a lot; the latter never.

Across Wyoming the mountains were really pretty with a lot of snow. Headwinds were still in the 20 to 30 knot range and it was getting toward the end of the day. Flying over the hills in a non-turbo single at night isn't for me, especially if there is any weather ahead, so we had to pick a place to park it for the night. We chose Ogden, Utah, where neither of us had ever been. At 10,500 it did not look great out the windshield as the Wasatch mountains and the clouds blended together east of Ogden. I looked at the IFR charts for the lowest usable altitude and it was 12,000. Rob climbed to 12,500 for terrain clearance and we looked for a place to get through VFR. It was a definite "maybe" but I chickened out first. A quick push of the button and request for IFR to Ogden got the clearance and we plunged through the weather for the last 20 miles. It was -11C and dark enough to see precip going by the strobes and figured it was already frozen. Looking at the wings and horiz stab leading edge did not reveal any ice but we landed a little later and still had some on the plane. It was clear ice, not rime, and just did not show up on the leading edges in flight. Never was a problem since we were almost within gliding distance of the airport when we entered the clouds in the first place but it was a little surprising when we saw it on the ground.

It was below freezing that night and we had to brush off some frost from the plane in the morning. Rob let me fly it from the left seat for the final leg, about 4 hours, to Hayward. We simply could not get it to start. It would not even pop on a cylinder when cranking, even after we tried flooded start procedures. They had told us in the checkout that it could be finicky to start but we had no prior problems with it. After several attempts we opted to call the factory. Gas was literally dripping out of the engine, so we were sure it was flooded, but could not understand why, since we had primed it properly for a fuel injection engine. They said it probably wasn't primed enough!! The explanation (which you ought to look into when you get the plane) was that it has an altitude compensating mixture system and that it recognized that we were at 5000 feet on the ground. As a result, when we primed the engine, it let only part of the fuel in and the rest went through the overflow??? Sounded a little weird, but when we primed the hell out of it as the Cirrus folks said, it started right up! You don't have any high altitude airports there so you may not enconter this but we thought it strange.

Taxi and takeoff were just as simple as could be, and I made sure to do the gentle rotation thing. At first, I tended to want to push the side stick left and right like you would a center stick instead of rotate it as you have to do. A few moments later I got used to the rotation feeling and manuvered the plane a little bit about all axes during the climb out over Great Salt Lake. After leveling at 8500 I set it on autopilot with altitude hold on and called up the cruise performance chart on the screen. RPM and manifold pressure were right on on of the recommended cruise settings, so I leaned to the proper fuel flow and let her rip. Rob was complaining about cold air and finally realized that his door was not fully shut. We opted to land at Wells, Nevada, at 5700 feet MSL to close the door and that was my first landing in the plane. Just no big deal. I pulled the power back to 20 inches of manifold pressure to start down and bled off speed to the magic 120 figure to get out the first 50% of flaps. On base I dropped the last of the flaps at 100 knots (top of white arc) and just flew final at 80. It was easy to track the centerline with the little stick and the flare was not much different from the Tiger. I heard the stall warning just as the wheels squeaked on and we taxied back after Rob got the door shut. A quick look at the POH showed no comments regarding leaning for high density altitude takeoffs, which is required for most non-turbo airplanes. I left the mixture full rich and it marched right down the runway just fine with lots of power. It was showing 17 gph at the time, so I am not sure any automatic leaning was taking place but then again, I don't know exactly how all that works in this airplane. Went back up to cruise and plugged in the autopilot again. Spent the next couple of hours chatting with Rob and letting YOUR plane take us to California. We sailed over the top of Lake Tahoe and landed at Hayward where everyone came out to see the new plane. I guess I ought to mention that just about every center controller wanted to know what an SR20 was since none of them had ever heard of it. My little spiel finished with, "and it has a rocket deployed parachute that can lower the whole plane to the ground in an emergency." Response to that ranged from "cool" to "now there's a good idea for you" to "send one over for me."

PERFORMANCE The plane just flies wonderfully. It is more stable than the Tiger and has a heavier airplane feel to it. The trim is very sensitive, and just a little touch of the coolie hat in either roll or pitch makes a noticeable difference. Like I said, landings and takeoffs are a non-issue. I had no checkout in it and flew my leg without any problems whatsoever. The true airspeed seems a little slower than published. When the power charts said it should be going 151 TAS, we noted about 146. This seemed to be the case at all of the altitudes we flew. The airspeed indicator may be off a little or they may just be a little optimistic about the performance. However, I look at it from a different angle. This airplane is just a little faster than the Tiger but has only 20 additional horsepower. It gets that speed at 2500 rpm instead of the 2700 needed in the Tiger. But most amazing is that it does this with a 2900 pound plane instead of a 2400 pound one in the case of the Grumman. And this extra 500 pounds of airplane gets you a huge amount of room, BMW/Mercedes quality interior furnishings and all of the trappings of modern technology in both the structure of the plane and its avionics. For the horsepower it has, I am amazed it goes like it does. Typical cruise fuel burn at 10,500 was about 9.1 gph.

The engine/prop combination is almost turbine-like in its smoothness. Don't know exactly how the prop governor is set up but it appears that you have basically two governed rpms. One is 2700 and one is 2500. The runup includes a governor check, but since there is no prop control, all you see as you advance the throttle during this check is increasing rpm until a certain point when the governor kicks in and slows it back down. Check over. On takeoff the prop goes to 2700 rpm and stays there until you bring back the power. Then it seems to want to stay right at 2500 rpm from that point on. We did not play with it since we were breaking in the engine, so I am not sure how far back the power has to go to get a reduction below 2500 rpm. I don't know, for instance, if you can cruise at an rpm lower than 2500. The cruise power chart shows only 2700 and 2500 rpm settings, so I suspect that to get lower than 2500 rpm you have to have the power way back, as in landing. I know that during initial descent when I came back to 20 or 18 inches, the revs stayed at 2500. You really fly more with the manifold pressure gauge than you do with the tach, which seems strange with only one lever to play with. However, it sure does make it simple.

The throttle is a little stiff, since it is operating both the air valve on the fuel injector and the prop governor. One thing to note is that when you think you have it at idle, you are still at 1200 rpm. You really have to bring the lever all the way back, quite hard, to get it to the lowest idle speed. I noticed this when Rob was taxiing in from our return to Duluth. He thought he had it all the way back and I asked him for a try. A little more of a tug brought it down to 700 rpm or so, and we both learned that lesson together.

The doors close a little differently. The right one is easier to close than the left. Rob had quite a bit of a problem with the left one until he discovered a better way to close it. They sure do feel nice when they close, though. They feel like a door in a new car and make a hefty latching sound when the door handle is rotated downward. The baggage door is hard to unlock and like a Tiger, it is best to push in on it just aft of the lock while rotating the key with the other hand. The seal on all three doors is quite tight, so it takes some effort to get them closed. Will probably improve with time.

Be sure to use the overhead hand hold straps when adjusting either front seat. If you don't, as soon as you pull up on the seat release, you go all the way to the aft stop and FAST! The seat rails are tilted (higher in front, lower in back), so when you release the seat you slide downhill. Be sure that if you park downwind that you hang onto those doors when you open them. They are like huge parachutes and I fear that one careless error could damage them. True, they have pneumatic snubbers but they can wear out and reduce their efficiency. I think just paying attention to the doors when the wind is up will pay off.

The fuel caps have a lock built into them if you want to secure them with a key. Useful load on your plane is about 920 pounds as I recall. Full fuel is about 330 of that. They are evidently working on an increase in legal gross weight, which would just be a paperwork change and would make the payload that much better.

The oil burn was a little more than Rob would have liked. We put in 2 quarts in Ogden, but don't really have good burn data yet since the engine is still breaking in. Rob will install an oil kit for the ferry, so he can put oil into the engine in flight. The factory identified an existing hole in the firewall they used for a test harness than can be used for that purpose. No holes will be drilled in the plane for antennas. The HF will go out either through the copilot door lock hole or out one of the holes for the copilot side hand grip on the fuselage. It will go from there to a bracket on the right wing tip, which will be attached via an existing machine screw. From there it usually goes to the top of the tail, but there are no, repeat NO machine screws there at all! This airplane is so smooth and devoid of things sticking up into the wind it is amazing. From the right wing tip the antenna will attach to an existing screw below the horizontal stabilizer. The screw is on an access plate there and is about the only place anything can be mounted. The bracket on the right wing tip will be elevated enough that the antenna from there to the tail will stay well above the aileron even at max deflection.

They currently plan to put two 90 gallon tanks in the fuselage. That will give it 23.5 hours of fuel at 10 gph but Rob may not fill one of them all the way. Right now the winds from the west are too high for a safe crossing. He wants a net component of -10 knots max from here to Honolulu and they are now a lot more than that. The plane will probably not do more than 120 knots true initially when heavy and will have higher than a 10 gph fuel burn. They are working on the ferry tanks today (Saturday) and I plan to go up and see the plane again on Monday, when it should still be uncowled. I want to get some more pictures for you and for the factory, since they wanted some. Also, I am interested in it just from the mechanic's standpoint.

SQUAWKS There are a few things we have written up on the plane. Two minor ones not noticed at the factory are petty. There are some hairline cracks in one of the interior mouldings on the copilot side of the instrument panel and the paint stripes on the baggage door don't quite line up with those on the fuselage.

The most serious is that the CHT gauge is intermittent. It worked for awhile and then started dropping toward the bottom of the green arc abruptly. Later it would not get get off the lower peg and even later started bouncing around. The last leg it seemed to work OK, but it still needs to be looked into.

The Avidyne main menu originally came up without the "Waypoints" item as shown in the manual. Later that item mysteriously appeared. Don't have a clue as to why.

The pilot door is hard to shut if you don't use the right technique. Rob will show you. On the other hand, maybe it will be all settled in by the time he gets there and it gets broken in a little more.

The standby vacuum pump is supposed to come on with the battery switch, and go off on engine start. We did not know that and did not realize that it was not comming on. In Ogden we noticed a popped circuit breaker and it was for the standby pump. When we reset it, the standby pump worked normally. The problem is that we checked circuit breakers prior to each start and nothing was amiss. Evidently the standby pump was not starting even though its circuit breaker was set. Be sure and read the systems section in detail to learn what is and what is not supposed to happen. We didn't have time to go over all that but you guys certainly do.

We're still not sure about proper priming after our problems in Ogden. You'll have to read the book well on this and have the system checked for proper operation. The factory explanation still seems lame to me. I just cannot buy that it is normal to have fuel flowing out the overflow while you prime and then be told you have not primed enough. Look into it. The ball is a little to the left in cruise flight. The rudder trim tab needs to be bent a little to the RIGHT. Minor problem easily fixed.

The aileron trim has been intermittent. We noticed that it seems to work OK on the ground but sometimes not in flight. The problem is not just with one trim switch but with both. We pondered if it is possibly having some problem overcoming air loads in flight, but on occasion it works. Another gremlin that needs to be investigated. The upper hand pull on the inside of the pilot door is loose. This is just a plastic part that is snapped or glued into place and can be used to pull the upper door into position to aid in latching if necessary. Like I said, we had trouble with this door and that is how we noticed that the pull was loose. Minor problem easily fixed.

STATUS OK, so you're going nuts wanting me to get to the burning question of when do you finally get to have YOUR airplane. Here's the deal.

1. Tanking, HF installation, oil system installation, etc. are being done today and Monday. They take Sunday off, even for you guys. The plane should be ready for the crossing on Tuesday, 5/16.

2. Paperwork. The FAA for some reason wanted to have a copy of the incorporation papers for Rob's company that is a foreign company doing business in the U.S. The plane was sold to this company as an interim step in getting it to you. However, the attorney in Hawaii who has those papers was out of the office yesterday (Friday) and will not be back until next week. So, Rob contacted a U.S. friend of his who has his own U.S. company and is also in the ferry business. They agreed to have the plane transferred to that company, thus avoiding the FAA's request for incorporation papers. They've done this before under similar circumstances. Cirrus was making up the new bill of sale, etc. and they were madly faxing things back and forth when I flew home yesterday. Since Cirrus is off over the weekend, as is the FAA, this stuff cannot be pushed along any further until Monday morning. Basically, the plane has to be in the name of a U.S. company or individual when it comes from the factory unless it has a foreign registration. Since the Cirrus was not certified by the Australian CAA until yesterday, it came out as a U.S. airplane. Once it is in the hands of a U.S. corporation, that entity can then sell it to you for transfer to the Aussie registry since it is now a certified plane by standards in Oz. That initial transfer to Rob's company was the hangup when the FAA wanted more papers. With a U.S. company, that will be no factor. This should be completed early next week.

3. Winds. This is probably the biggest unknown in the whole thing since it involves mother nature. Rob will not go until the winds safely permit it. You can watch them yourself on the same web site he does and monitor what they are doing. Look at: http://www.nws.noaa.gov/pr/hnl/pages/aviation_frames.html This will show you the winds across the routes from both southern and northern California to Honolulu at different altitudes. The component at the bottom is the average headwind on the route. Minus means a headwind and plus means a tailwind. Don't know exactly what Rob requires, but this will give you a good idea of the status of wind.

Anyway, that's about all I can think of to say. I want to thank you again for letting me get in touch with Rob and for getting to fly in YOUR plane! Telling you all about it is the least I can do in exchange for the opportunity to fly it. If you have any specific questions, send me a list and I will take them on one by one and send back a quick response. Right now I want to get my roll of film developed and scan some photos to email you later today. It is 5:15 AM right now Sunday AM in Brisbane, so by afternoon your time, you should have some of the pictures. I will, of course, package up an entire set and mail them to you as soon as I get the additional tanking shots. Bill