Two Pilots & an LSW: Cirrus-ly

Wednesday I got to have a later start; Morgan and I met up at Kokomo at a reasonable hour, flew the 340 over to Delphi and picked up Stephen and Tell, and ran them down to Washington, IN. Dropped them off, then she and I went on to Indy Exec, where we went out to breakfast at a local place, just getting some Greek yogurt, fruit and granola, and coffee. Met up with P Gaston, who was our instructor in the Cirrus. I was going to have her go first this time. Whoever goes first is at a disadvantage and I’ve always gone first before, to give her the chance to see what to expect. But I thought it only fair that *I* have the advantage for once. ;) Unfortunately, with my upcoming schedule, I’m going to have a harder time getting over there to finish training than she will. So I went ahead and went first anyway, while she rode in the back.

The Cirrus is a nice airplane, it’s a pretty blue color, so I’m going to have to get a picture of it one of these days. It’s a 2025 SR22 G7 model, with 310 horsepower and 5 seats. Starting it up takes an act of Congress to get through all the checklists and screens and button pushing, as does run up and pre-take off. No wonder they sit there so damn long before going. We went up and I did steep turns, slow flight, power off stalls, power on stalls. It has a stick shaker, and won’t hardly break. I kept trying to get the stall to break and I think he didn’t think I knew how to recover, wanted me to do it again, so this time I told him I was holding it there to try to get it to actually break. It’s quite docile. Came back in and did a couple normal landings, then a half flap landing, a go-around, and a no flap landing. They were all fine. He was on the controls and ready to take over for most of it, but didn’t have to. ;) He said that next we have to do cross countries and approaches. The plane is easy to fly. The one thing that is not easy is all the screens. The whole front of the cockpit has a bunch of shit in it. Two controlling touch screens with knobs below four large ‘windows’ across the dash which have everything, and can also control things. And it’s hard to know where to go to get to what you want. It’s not intuitive at all, and there’s a LOT of it. They call it a PFW now for “Primary Flight Window” instead of the old PFD for Display (oh brother). At one point on my flight I was just trying to pull up a damn map so I could figure out where I was, and was having a dickens of a time doing that! lol So it’s the knobs, buttons and screens I’m going to have to figure out before I can safely fly the plane, not the actual flying. Flying=easy. The Space Shuttle of the Future avionics, not so much. I mean, heck, it made me feel like a poor Boomer dealing with their first ever iPhone. ;) Seriously though, that is a LOT of buttons, knobs, features, functions.

When we got done with that, we took back off and went back to Washington to pick up the two guys, and drop them back off at Delphi, before bringing the 340 home for the evening. At that point all the airports were closed for fueling, so I tried to self-serve at Delphi, but the pump didn’t work. Got back in and had to self serve at Kokomo, in the frigid. When people think the job is glamorous, those are the things I want to show them. Some times it’s glamorous. Sometimes it’s freezing and grumbling.

Put the 340 away, and met up with Kaylee and Steve for dinner at Olive Garden, and Morgan came too. We were starved as it was 7:15 pm and all we’d had was yogurt/granola/berries all day. Had a good meal, and a good time to end the day.

Early the next morning, today, I am up, picking up the 340, taking it to Delphi to pick up Nick and Clay. We head to Sullivan, Indiana, south of Terre Haute, to pick up another salesguy. The runway is snow and iced over, taxiways are worse, the whole field is in crappy condition with no NOTAM to say so, but it was good enough to get in and out of at least. Took all them to Malden, Missouri, where there is also snow and ice packed all over the ground, although at least their runways are clear! Those guys took the only crew car into town, so I ordered from Door Dash, the only places available/open were basically Taco Bell, McDonald’s and Pizza Hut, so I ordered a personal pan pizza and a couple mini cinnamon buns for lunch, and have waited in silence. I had to self-serve fuel here, too, in the cold. I like going places that have fuel trucks and line guys any more. ;) But…I got it done, and the plane is sitting out on the ramp freezing and waiting for them to get back, at which time we’ll drop salesman guy back off in Sullivan, and I’ll drop them off in Delphi before heading home myself. They said they’d be done at noon, it’s now 1:20 pm and I haven’t heard from them. Shouldn’t be too long though I hope. It’s currently 2:20 my time, which means I can’t get back before 5 pm as it is even if they showed up now. Not that I have anything super pressing, but I’m tired, it’s cold in this place, and I’m ready to head out.

Tomorrow I don’t think I have anything, so I’ll see about catching up on some of the stuff for the medical guy, among other things… Pics will have to be added later as I can’t do it on my iPad any more for whatever reason. Maybe I’ll come back tonight if there’s anything else to add to the day. If not, see ya tomorrow!