Things that have spoiled you

jmp470 said:
I find this thread funny. Lets put some numbers out there. I'm comparing the SR 20 to both the DA 40 and DA 20 because they have similar missions, training and private owner where as, the SR 22 is rarely used in flight training and is high performance. I'm using the FAA registry for the numbers of planes (this does include N numbered planes in other countries) and NTSB reports from 4/1/2000 to today! Bottom line, no clear cut winner!!!! I will stick with the Cirrus SR 20 as it is more comfortable and has a parachute... just in case!!!!


Diamond: registered # 1085, NTSB reports 70, 12 Fatal: 67 of the accidents were in VMC and of those 8 were Fatal
Cirrus: registered #773, NTSB reports 49, 20 Fatal: 31 of the accidents were in VMC and of those 6 were Fatal.
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:confused::confused::confused: With a fatality rate over twice as high, why would that be?
 
Henning,
I am a VFR pilot and looking at the stats... 8 in Diamond vs 6 in Cirrus...

It all depends on how you are going to use it, I guess.
 
Henning,
But my other wrinkle is that I'm trying to turn my wife on to either the RV-10's or the p2006t; as I'm trying to buy 40 acre of land in near San Antonio, TX and fly off of it.
 
jmp470 said:
Henning,
I am a VFR pilot and looking at the stats... 8 in Diamond vs 6 in Cirrus...

It all depends on how you are going to use it, I guess.
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That actually doesn't speak as well for Cirrus. 67 crashes with 8 fatalities is a better safety record than 31 crashes with 6 fatalities. Based on your post, you're statistically less likely to survive a crash in VMC in a Cirrus than you are in a Diamond. You also have to take into consideration which aircraft are flying more often.
 
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Matt,
I agree with you, basically their is a ca 6% chance of crashing in either aircraft (70/1085 and 49/773). VFR only.... as that's all I'm concerned about. Their is a 19% chance it will be fatal in the Cirrus, versus ca. 12% for the Diamond. Like I said, it all depends on how you use it, as I don't know where to get numbers of hours flown for each model. As for VFR into IFR or IFR mistakes... It doesn't go very well for Cirrus, as it's over 50% fatal.... But which aircraft flies more IFR? So others can speculate.. and draw their own conclusions... but I know what I'm wanting to do.
 
jmp470 said:
Henning,
I am a VFR pilot and looking at the stats... 8 in Diamond vs 6 in Cirrus...

It all depends on how you are going to use it, I guess.
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Diamond VFR 67, 8 fatal= 12% fatal for VFR crashes
Cirrus VFR 31, 6 fatal= 19% fatal for VFR crashes

Diamond 1085 registered, .73% fatal fleet VFR.
Cirrus 773 Reg, VFR .77% fatal fleet VFR.

I'm still not seeing your preference from the numbers.
 
I guarantee you there are more schools using the diamond for training than the Cirrus.
 
Gosh I hesitate to list all the things that have me spoiled.

GPS, a biggie like everyone else.
Large display MFD (GMX-200).
ADS-B traffic.
XM weather (haven't tried ADS-B wx yet).
eHSI
2-axis A/P with GPSS and VSS.
Engine monitor.
Transponder controlled by the GPS.
Ability to monitor SBY freq on either or both radios.
Since January, iPad w/ FF and GPS, georeferenced sectional.

Yeah, I'm spoiled rotten.

A fuel totalizer would be nice though.
 
matthammer said:
ATP predominantly uses Skyhawks and Seminoles, not Diamonds. IIRC they have 5 Diamond Stars, but that's about it.
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True, but the point is that they are a flight school that does indeed use Diamond Stars. There are plenty more out there, but not as big a name as ATP. You won't see any Cirrus in their fleet.

There are always exceptions, but generally the folks who do primary training in Cirrus airplanes are the rich ones who buy them to do their training in them.
 
Fearless Tower said:
True, but the point is that they are a flight school that does indeed use Diamond Stars. There are plenty more out there, but not as big a name as ATP. You won't see any Cirrus in their fleet.

There are always exceptions, but generally the folks who do primary training in Cirrus airplanes are the rich ones who buy them to do their training in them.
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They don't use any Diamond singles, though, so I'm not sure it really counts. :)

I know Aerosim Flight Academy has a fleet of 30 something Cirrus SR-20's. So that's one school on the Cirrus side.
 
Skylane81E said:
Air force still using katanas?
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They were using Da40s last I heard. We have a school in San Marcos that operates 3 Katanas and 2 Da40s. Ive never seen a flight school that operates Cirrus.
 
jmp470 said:
Dave,
What schools use fleet Diamond vs Fleet Cirrus?
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There were 2 schools on FXE, one with a fleet of diamonds, 20s, 40s & 42,
and another with SR-20 & 22s. The one with Diamonds was training wannabe airline pilots. The one with Cirrus was training successful middle age people to fly, renting and potentially selling airplanes. The one with Diamonds went out of business a couple of years ago, the one with Cirrus is still in business.


So, the answer to your question that I see is, "The ones that want to be successful use Cirrus."
 
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As mentioned above, Doss is using Katana's at PUB.

Then there's the news that the Air Force will replace the Diamonds with Cirrus at the Academy...
 
DavidWhite said:
List a few things on the plane that you own/rent that you feel like you couldnt live without if you flew a different plane.
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Wings, ailerons, rudder, elevator. FLY THE DAMNED AIRPLANE !!
 
The plane I first flew had auto pilot and I do miss that, now have an I-pad with WingX and Bose A20, would find it hard to give those up. Also owning my own plane that I can fly whenever I want not when no one else is flying it.
 
Henning said:
But it assures you of nothing except that you have a line in front of you that you still need to penetrate.outside of that, XM gets you nothing the window doesn't. I can see big cells to avoid them out the window just fine all by myself.
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Without reading a lot of posts to know for sure; can I assume you don't use XM weather? Or at least not much? Over the years, that I've used it, it makes all the difference in mountain country, except for those nice blue sky days. It sees, what's impossible to see with "eye balls". It isn't perfect, but the advantages more than make up for what it can't do. There will always be those who disagree, and yet there is a "whole" lot of XM weather users out there..............who know exactly what it can do. WE prefer to not leave home without it.

L.Adamson
 
L.Adamson said:
There will always be those who disagree, and yet there is a "whole" lot of XM weather users out there..............who know exactly what it can do. WE prefer to not leave home without it.
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Agreed fully. When people say it's a replacement for on-board radar, I say "It's not, they are two separate devices with different capabilities." On-board can't tell you what's happening 300 miles out (at least mine can't). XM isn't going to do a good job of telling me what's 10 miles out and rapidly developing.

Ideally, I want radar, stormscope, and XM.
 
There is no practical way to have weather radar in my Bo, but the combination of XM and my Strikefinder is pretty good. Le Jesse, I would not dream of using XM to pick my way through bad weather, but I ave used it on occasion to make a "don't go there" decision, including declining vectors while in IMC with the revision vetted by what I saw where they wanted to end me after I was in the clear.
 
DavidWhite said:
List a few things on the plane that you own/rent that you feel like you couldnt live without if you flew a different plane.
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I had an actual experience with this a couple years ago. My airplane was getting new engines installed and the owner of the shop doing the engine work loaned me his Baron for the duration. During that time I wanted to fly my family to Chicago and Milwaukee but the lack of any deice (it was early winter), no IFR GPS, a non-functional autopilot led me to cancel the flight and drive.
 
L.Adamson said:
Without reading a lot of posts to know for sure; can I assume you don't use XM weather? Or at least not much? Over the years, that I've used it, it makes all the difference in mountain country, except for those nice blue sky days. It sees, what's impossible to see with "eye balls". It isn't perfect, but the advantages more than make up for what it can't do. There will always be those who disagree, and yet there is a "whole" lot of XM weather users out there..............who know exactly what it can do. WE prefer to not leave home without it.

L.Adamson
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I used it all the time if it's in the plane and then it's on, but I won't spend money on it. If the data comes with a more complete ADS-B steam, then I would go ahead and get the equipment and still use it the way I do now, to aim for where I think the thinner area along the line; however I have other ways of gathering that info. Since flying along is pretty boring, if it's long enough of a trip where the predeparture planning didn't give me enough info, I get an update over the radio like I've been doing forever. They are looking at the same pic XM would give me. When I get to that line though, I still rely on what I see out the window to penetrate the line. If I didn't have the visibility or the knowledge to deal with the weather as it exists the moment I cross that point in time and space, I would be no safer having the XM than without. Get it yet?
 
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SCCutler said:
There is no practical way to have weather radar in my Bo, but the combination of XM and my Strikefinder is pretty good. Le Jesse, I would not dream of using XM to pick my way through bad weather, but I ave used it on occasion to make a "don't go there" decision, including declining vectors while in IMC with the revision vetted by what I saw where they wanted to end me after I was in the clear.
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Weather radar seems to primarily only exist on twins, with the single exceptions being various 210s (mainly on the P210), Malibu series, a few A36s, and the various turbines out there.

The problem is that if you didn't purchase the plane with some form of radar in it already (or having had some form of radar in it at one point in time), the installation becomes quite difficult. Even when we put the KWX56 in the 310 (which previously had an RDR-130), the install had some challenges due to the small radome on the plane and differences in size between the old unit and new unit. We made it work and are happy with the install, but it certainly had its challenges.

I agree that a stormscope and XM can provide you with good coverage in most conditions. In some conditions, you can have the stormscope be more useful than on-board radar, simply because lightning and areas I don't want to go through can exist without significant precipitation.

Overall, ATC can be helpful at times, but I do not trust them as much as I trust myself. I've had enough instances when they would have happily let me fly through a thunderstorm (or try to make me divert around something that was insignificant) to realize that, while some are very helpful, others aren't.
 
DavidWhite said:
It takes ALOT of turbulence to make a the wing shake on a 172. There has never been an in flight breakup of a skyhawk as long as it was operating within its limitations - and there are 30k hour skyhawks out there.
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Yes, but there was this accident. There was an instructor on board. Originally I had heard there might have been an alignment pin used where a bolt was supposed to be but that doesn't show up in the NTSB report.
 
DavidWhite said:
List a few things on the plane that you own/rent that you feel like you couldnt live without if you flew a different plane.
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Can't live without is a strong statement but I do like the speed and MPG of my Mooney, and I would sorely miss autopilots.
 
peppy said:
Yes, but there was this accident. There was an instructor on board. Originally I had heard there might have been an alignment pin used where a bolt was supposed to be but that doesn't show up in the NTSB report.
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404 error - The NTSB database has been funky lately.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
Weather radar seems to primarily only exist on twins, with the single exceptions being various 210s (mainly on the P210), Malibu series, a few A36s, and the various turbines out there.

The problem is that if you didn't purchase the plane with some form of radar in it already (or having had some form of radar in it at one point in time), the installation becomes quite difficult. Even when we put the KWX56 in the 310 (which previously had an RDR-130), the install had some challenges due to the small radome on the plane and differences in size between the old unit and new unit. We made it work and are happy with the install, but it certainly had its challenges.

I agree that a stormscope and XM can provide you with good coverage in most conditions. In some conditions, you can have the stormscope be more useful than on-board radar, simply because lightning and areas I don't want to go through can exist without significant precipitation.

Overall, ATC can be helpful at times, but I do not trust them as much as I trust myself. I've had enough instances when they would have happily let me fly through a thunderstorm (or try to make me divert around something that was insignificant) to realize that, while some are very helpful, others aren't.
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Their radar also has many limitations. One example is Albuquerque center. Due to the terrain, there is some stuff that ZAB radar simply can't see.
 
Threefingeredjack said:
4 × Allison T56-A-15 turboprops
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I've had that bad boy out of San Diego drop me three 'pump in a barrel' kits off Turtle Bay once many years ago, they were already warmed up and started first pull. When I got in and returned the pumps with a case of beer I thanked the loadmaster for warming them up. He said "I figured if I'm kicking pumps to you in the ocean, you need them to work." Good thinking. I also thanked the pilot for his aim, he dropped them right off my lee bow.
 
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