Hey, thanks for writing back. I was hoping my smack talk would prompt a response from some cirrus driver. You'll have to do.
"If I had to guess you are probably still accruing hours to get your VFR license." -Hmm... yeah.... I might have more ink than you think...
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"There are only 2 reasons to buy a mooney. They are
fast and affordable. That's about it." -Two things I like...
"They are also an unforgiving airplane with their
small wing span/area meaning they stal(l) easier, and have a worse glide ratio." -Aspect ratio. Yes, this is true. They eat runway, and land kinda hot. I think that this is a reasonable sacrifice for speed. It requires more work, more planning, and more proficiency. They aren't a beginner's airplane, but they aren't the space shuttle either. They are fraction of the price of an aircraft of comparable performance.
"The C182 is slow as can be, being turbo charged it has a service ceiling of 18,000 feet but you and your passengers would need to wear an oxygen mask which sucks, not to mention at 18,000 feet over the rockies you can encounter some crazy winds like a 75kt head wind for example (very common), and with 145kt cruise speed that means you are traveling in the at highway speeds. And btw, it doesn't have the power to take off out of Denver on a hot day with full payload and fly west. Well, technically you probably could but it would not be smart due to the high
density altitude the heat creates." -140 kts isn't that bad. On the other end, it has a pretty low stall speed and ground roll. That increases your options for landing, which is in all actuality, pretty important. Your approach to mountain flying puzzles me. Mountain flying is about understanding air currents, not picking the highest mountain around, and flying straight over it. Density altitude... Yes, that is indeed what I was referring to in that last statement, not the Bermuda Triangle like bunch of extra gravity found in Colorado.
The Piper PA28-235 the (last three refer to engine HP in Pipers) has a 235 hp motor, which makes it pretty much the same as a C-182, just with a cheaper Hershey bar wing. You will find, if you experiment, that you can exceed the service ceiling in the manual, but indeed, it just isn't that good of a wing. One thing that is good about Pipers is the 12 volt electrical system, which means that you can jump it with a car if you leave the master on. Cessnas have a 24 volt system, which require two batteries in series. I can only imagine what happens if you do this in a cirrus. After much hand wringing, you probably call the salesman.
"The Cirrus is targeted to more
amateur pilots, and casual users." -Fo sho. "If they had added retractable landing gear it would have meant they would need to get their complex aircraft endorsement, and insurance companies would charge more to insure it being a complex aircraft.
Many GA pilots have landed perfectly on the run way but forgot to put the landing gear down and wrecked the plane." -I would not call that a
perfect landing. There is this thing called the checklist. On a serious note, I really don't think that an aircraft should be designed to accommodate this level of incompetence. That's what I was getting at with my comment about the parachute. Seatbelts are something you should wear in anything rolling along at 70 mph. You can have gusting cross winds, animals on the runway, etc. The ground and its proximity are dangerous to airplanes. Having a parachute implies that for some reason, up in the air, you could just all of a sudden lose control of the aircraft. Ask yourself... Why? If you are making good choices about the conditions, this really should not happen.
It may surprise you, but I do know what a complex endorsement is. What's wrong with learning to fly an airplane where you can change the aerodynamics of the wing and the prop, along with the fuselage, if that's where the gear happen to be? It forces you to think, and manage the machine better, making use of its features. Furthermore, if you are spending 400K on a cirrus, what difference is the extra training and insurance cost? I just don't see the savings there.
Taking this all together, I feel that Cirrus caters to a mindset that feels like it can buy safety without developing proficiency. All joking aside, that kind of thinking and airplanes don't really mix. Here's an article that says it well:
http://airfactsjournal.com/2012/05/dicks-blog-whats-wrong-with-cirrus-pilots/
This article talks about the glass cockpit, as well. Sure, there is nothing wrong with having good instrumentation, and extra data. At the end of the day, if you aren't mentally prepared to fly hard single pilot IFR like some part 135 guy doing his daily routine, you just shouldn't do it. End of story. You just can't buy your way out of disorientation, confusion, and fear. Having the basic six (with working gyros) a good GPS, and knowing how your VORs work is fundamental. I am not saying that it is better, clearly it's not. What I am saying, is unless you are very comfortable with using the basic six, flying in actual clouds/ice/rain/storms, the glass cockpit won't make that much difference. It doesn't make decisions for you.
Back in the 1960's, rumor has it that they called the V-35 Bonanza the "fork tailed doctor killer". The airplanes have changed, but the doctors haven't.
Opinions.
Thanks for responding. I appreciate your point of view.
So first and foremost then. What rating, if any at all do you hold, and how many actual flight hours do you have logged?
Your comments are based from a dearth of knowledge that leads me to confidently believe that you do not hold an IFR rating or are close to it, which ultimately is what is important because otherwise your perspective is akin to a teenager with their driving permit. Sure you can drive the car safely, but you shouldn't be driving with other people, in bad weather, or in tricky situations. You still have a lot to learn.
But it's okay, I am happy to entertain your thought process on your journey to become a better pilot, as a good pilot is always learning and it's always nice to talk flying.
Re-Mooney fast and affordable: Sure, two things that anyone likes... but at what cost? Range, payload, comfort, space, passenger capacity, ease of flight/forgiving flight characteristics, pressurized, service ceiling? So essentially you sacrifice everything else..... That is why they are so "affordable" because no body wants to compromise all of those other things.
Re-Unforgiving: You seem to be very focused on your landing areas.... Thats actually not really that big of a deal. unless you plan to do mostly back country flying you will be hard pressed to find a field that is too short for ANY single prop plane. Especially in light of the fact that most short fields and grass strips are private fields anyways, that you cannot land on without prior arrangements and permission, like knowing someone who owns a hangar. Even then, most private strips are plenty long enough to accommodate just about any single engine aircraft. The unforgiving characteristics is more of a flight characteristic. Most importantly stall characteristics and glide ratio. You are training on a 172 I am sure, so you think that because you know how to recover a stall in a plane that is capable of auto-recovery (if you stall a C172 and don't touch the controls it will come out of the stall by itself in short order, which is why its such a great/safe training aircraft), but other aircraft that are much less forgiving like the mooney can stall much easier and are substantially more difficult to recover once stalled, and the stall can spiral into a more complex stall like a cross controlled stall and/or flat spin which would be a kiss of death in that plane. Glide ratio is also improtant because it dictates your glide distance to a runway in case of an engine out situation.
Re jumping your plane: Not sure how this is a big deal... You would normally have your FBO do this for you anyways... And a Cirrus runs a 24 volt system as well... not a big deal.
Re-182 and mountain flying: Not sure what your reference of 140kts actually being good is compared to, but no its not. It's really slow in fact. Compared to a Sky Hawk its a rocket, but that doesnt make it fast. A moped is fast compared to a bicycle... More over you completely glide over the inconvenience of having to wear an O2 mask at altitude due to the lack of pressurization, which is a big inconvenience. Not to mention having to pay to have the O2 tank refilled every so often which is not cheap.
On the topic of mountain flying, I actually live in Denver, so my approach to mountain flying is not to hit a mountain, or put myself in a situation where it is at all likely. Period. The mountains out here can get above 14,000 feet and we have hundred that are 13,000ft. Have you ever flown at the service ceiling of your Cessna 172? I have.... the rate of climb is like 50fpm. With the gusts you can encounter at that altitude in the middle of the mountains, it would be extremely foolish and dangerous to fly in the mountains in any plane with similar performance characteristics, especially in the summer where its exacerbated. One good mountain wave (actual phenomena) and you will be pushed into the side of a mountain faster then you know what hit you.
Just on that alone is how I can tell that you still have some serious training left to do. You are taking the theoretical maximums of a plane and putting them all together. You don't get max velocity, max rate of climb, max payload, max range, and max service ceiling all at the same time.... In fact, there are only a handful of combinations where you can even have 2 of those at the same time. Essentially, when you push the planes performance envelope to one extreme, you are compromising in just about every other area leaving you vulnerable.
Down the list we go....
Landing planes without bringing the gear down. It happens more often than you think. It's not a reason to not buy a retractable gear airplane, but its just another factor. Some people, in addition to not wanting to have to remember to raise/lower the gear, also dont want the added risk and headache retractable gear brings. Mainly, the added maintenance it requires, and the added risk of failure during flight. People not only forget to lower the gear, but it also happens that sometimes they go to lower it but one of the tires wont deploy, or none at all because of some in flight malfunction. I had a family friend whome this happened to on a Piper Aztec, and they had to do a belly landing right there in the middle of the runway (fortunately made it unharmed). Thats why its more expensive to insure and maintain, and for some people its not worth the risk/headache/cost, a lot of times these types of people tend to be amateur pilots. They have enough to deal with being a new pilot, they don't feel a desire to rush into adding to the pile.
Seat belts and parachutes: So you think the reason you have a seat belt in the plane is for runway collisions/encounters? What about turbulence? Ever found yourself flying along and unexpectedly hit wake turbulence that causes your little 172 to flip upside down, or do a full barrel roll? It has happened many times, and you can try to avoid it but sometimes its impossible to know when you are flying along and you crossed the flight path where a jet flew through over a minute ago and is 5 miles away now. Wake current lasts an extremely long time. Additionally, general turbulence can do similar things, causing your plane to jump, drop, flip any number of things if it is severe. You probably want a seat belt during those times too. If you have to do an engine out landing, or any type of emergency landing... you also probably want your seat belt on. it's not just for when you are rolling during take off and landing, its for your safety over the course of the entire flight. How this pertains to a parachute? Well, sometimes, things happen during a flight that are out of your control and lead to unexpected events/situations the severity of which can be variable, coupled with the unexpected nature of an inflight mechanical failure and the pressure this brings, it can lead to tragic events due to pilot error. In Cirrus's defense, they DO NOT have a single recorded death whenever the parachute was deployed, and the insurance companies covered the damage every single time. It's not about incompetence, its about layers of security. It's foolish to think you are above needing extra layers of security because you are such an advanced pilot. Go tell a fighter pilot they shouldn't have electable seats too.
Re-Cirrus mindset: Cirrus doesn't cater to this mindset. What happens is there exist poor instructors who don't give their students the tools to perform under emergency circumstances, and or allow their students to believe they are invincible, coupled with the easy to fly nature of the plane and the over eagerness of some pilots to fly beyond what their skills dictate. This doesn't mean that you should hold the technology liable for the hubris of man/woman. You wouldn't say that a new mercedes with all of the features it carries standard like collision avoidance, active cruise control with lane finding technology, 360 degree airbags, anti-sway/roll bars, and anti-lock brakes makes it a bad car because it caters to the mindset of people being poor drivers would you? Same logic. Technology in aviation is a good thing, pilot error is responsible for over 90% of general aviation incidents. The fact that you think the only reason you would suddenly lose control up in the air is due to poor judgement in flying conditions demonstrates naivete and lack of experience.
Re:Glass Cockpit: Clearly you have never flown a glass cockpit or else you would know that the displays show you all the information your standard 6-pack shows you, it just shows you on a screen vs a dial.... So you still have to know how to use a glide-scope, VOR, etc etc. And many times they have backup instruments in the form of analog in case there is ever an electronics failure (which it would have to be a double/total electronics failure, as its a redundant system). What a digital/glass cockpit does give you however are many added safety/awareness features. Big ones being synthetic vision,/TAWS (Terrain Awareness & Warning System), TCAS (Traffic & Collision Avoidance Systems, Weather alert systems with radar overlaying your GPS route, lighting strike indicators, digital VOR overlay on your GPS, to name a few.
Finally, your thoughts on flying during IFR conditions are the final nail in the coffin as to why I know with certainty that you are not an IFR rated pilot. Your philosophy of, you shouldn't fly IFR conditions unless you fly it every day just like a commercial pilot is wrong, and is what gets people killed. Avoid all weather is a VFR philosophy meant for a new pilot. However, and this is especially true on longer routes, you cannot control or predict every variable of a flight, and often times the preferred route will be through some sort of cloud cover or weather. A good IFR pilot will not avoid a cloud because they worry about becoming disoriented. That's a non-issue for an IFR pilot because you received substantial training in how to fly a plane without looking out the window. It's literally a per-requisite. Continuing to fly in IFR conditions will keep your training fresh and improve your skills/confidence. It's not to say that you should fly in a severe thunderstorm by choice, but to shy away from overcast skies starting at 4,000 ft is silly. What you are really doing is a disservice to your training, yourself, and anyone who ever flies as a passenger with you, because you are not putting your skills to constant use. So when the times comes, not if, you will be in a much worse position then had you not been avoiding the cloud cover. Your IFR rating is all about teaching precision of flight, during sub-optimal conditions and how to stay calm and not be intimidated by it.
The first thing my CFI told me when I got my IFR rating was, good job, now go and use it. You have to keep on flying IFR, the people who get into trouble are the ones who avoid it, but think they are playing it safe since they already have their rating, but truth is you can't control the weather, and your can't control every variable.
As for your V-tail Bonanza reference, that is correct. It was labelled the doctor killer. It's pretty well known among pilot, and especially doctor pilots. If you go back in this thread several pages to around page 14 or 15 I believe. I reference the V-Tail Bonanza and its nickname as the doctor killer, in a similar context.
You seem to be at a point in your training in which you have obviously been around a lot of instructors/pilots and been involved in or heard their conversation. You are saying a lot of the normally heard stuff, but its evident you don't know the why, and its leading to you misusing your points because you still don't know enough yet. You'll get there for sure as you obviously have a passion for it like I do, but for now lets just say that you have a long way to go.
