C-Day +1

Today started much too early. I went to bed at a decent hour last night, but couldn’t get to sleep no matter how many Good Times reruns I watched on TV Land. I don’t think I got into deep REM until about three hours before the alarm went off. DYNO-MITE!

I was at the factory by quarter to 7 this morning, going over normal and emergency procedures in the workbook I completed before I came up here. About 8:30 they had a coffee for all new Cirrus owners and the Cirrus execs. I didn’t get to meet the Klapmeir brothers who started the company, but I did get to spend a little time talking with the CEO, David Coleal. David came to Cirrus from Toyota in SoCal. He’s a very intense guy. In the course of our conversation I found out he’s really into RC monster trucks. He also has a Mini-T. We talked about having a few Horizon folks up to take a tour of Cirrus. He said to e-mail him and he’d see what he could do. I told him Cirrus service, marketing and its drive to innovate is something any company should observe.

Then I got to meet my instructor, Jeff. Jeff’s a young guy with a disposition not unlike our beloved Panno. I wondered if he listened to gangster rap as he drove his white Maxima home from work. I was to find out later because like an idiot I left the temporary registration for the airplane in my hotel room and he drove me back to pick it up. You see, federal regs say you can’t fly unless the airworthiness certificate, registration, operating handbook and weight and balance documentation are in the plane. So for want of a pink slip of paper, my first lesson in the left seat started about 30 minutes late. Oh, he’s more into classic rock.

All the lessons are scenario based. In other words I plan cross country trips as I would in regular operations and I learn the systems on the fly, if you’ll pardon the pun. Going from the “steam gauges” of the Archer to the flat screen PFD (Primary Flight Display) and MFD (Multifunction Flight Display) proved easier than I thought. All the practice with the avionics training software they sent me months ago has really paid off.

I saw some beautiful country. If you’ve seen Grizzly Man, the documentary about the hippie who thought he could talk to bears and then got eaten by one, the scenery was a lot like that only without the mountains. Lakes and forests dominate the landscape. Lose an engine and you’re either in the sticks or swimming with Walleye.

My first few landings as PIC (pilot-in-command) were utter and total crap. I didn’t break anything but did bounce a couple. This aircraft truly is technically advanced. The laminar flow, high aspect ratio wing does not abide ham fisted operators. Once I forced myself to not fly it like an Archer and fly “by the numbers” instead, I started greasing them on. We also tried a fully automated approach. I won’t go into a lot more detail, but 4.1 hours later I was ready for a beer.

So ready in fact I had two tall ones at the Tejas up the road when I got back to the hotel. Think I’ll go back tomorrow night too. They had a bunch of good stuff on tap and in bottles. Until tonight I thought I was in some beer-less village of the damned. There is no beer at the convenient store near the hotel and I’m far enough from downtown, it’s almost impossible to get a cab. Lucky for me I spotted the joint as the hotel shuttle passed it taking me back tonight. It’s about a 10 minute walk along the highway from the hotel. I felt like Carl from Slingblade walking along the shoulder to get to dinner.

Tomorrow training gets tougher. Jeff, or a JePanno as I now think of him, will take me up and we’ll do the same type of cross country scenarios we did today, only this time he’s going to start failing equipment and observing how I respond. So before I hit the hay here I’m going to peruse the emergency and abnormal operations checklist.

Sorry, no pictures. I was a little pre-occupied. Tomorrow I will do better.