Way in over my head, don’t be me!

S

Shallow pockets

Guest
Last year I bought a brand new Turbo Cirrus SR22 to train for my private license in. The appeal to avoid airline hassle and have my own plane was something of interest, so I went and purchased a brand new airplane, with only 83 hours on it. While I have a pretty lucrative job in construction I bit off far more than I can chew. Insurance kills me, the annual maintenance inspection that I didn’t know would be required on a year old airplane was insane, over $14,000. I had no idea this was so expensive and I admit I should have done my homework beforehand. Don’t be me and find yourself upside down in an airplane that you still can’t even fly because instructor availability is hard to keep consistent. I haven’t even soloed yet. So I’ve got this incredibly expensive airplane sitting in a community hangar doing nothing until I can schedule my instructor again. It’s a handful of an airplane for a 27hour pilot student. Don’t be me.
 
Don't worry, I'll never be you...financially. But if I was you, I'd consider hiring a recent puppy mill CFI graduate on salary. The benefit to you is he flies you when and where you want to go ("appeal to avoid airline hassle"), assured instructor availability, and maximum plane utilization. The benefit to him/her is they build time toward their 1,500 hours with a steady paycheck and in a nice plane.

I'm sure I am over-simplifying things and others will come along to point out why this isn't practical, but you caught me early on Saturday morning before I have finished my first cup of coffee.

Good luck in your journey.
 
Being a guest post, this has a bit of a troll smell to it, but it's certainly the most believable attempt this week if it is. If you're for real I'd encourage you to stick around as there's lots of help and encouragement for aspiring pilots. One thing that seems a little fishy is a 14K annual on an 83 hour nearly new plane. Surely that would still be under warranty? Regardless that's a lot of money for a nearly new plane. Either way the next one shouldn't be bad.

An SR22T is a lot of plane, but I don't think it would hold back a student pilot that much. It sounds like lack of instructor availability is the biggest issue. There's likely a CSIP in your neighborhood that could get you sorted out pretty quickly. Insurance would be a nightmare in this scenario, but again if you can afford a nearly new Cirrus, it should be manageable, and quickly get better once you get certificated. Again, if this is real, you should be able to knock out your private in a couple months if you're dedicated and can find a similarly dedicated instructor. Then you have one of the best travelling planes built.
 
A few things I'll share from experience...I bought a glass 172 pre-solo. The local school after initially promsing to train me in my plane bailed on me...'insurance reasons'. Best thing ever in retrospect.

A 14K annual in a 83 hours bird is almost certainly you being taken advantage of. Look into savvyaviation.com. These guys were founded for you...

On the training...Find the oldest grizzliest CFI on the field...tell him you have a brand new plane and get him to finish your primary AND instrument training...whole you are at it, do your commercial as well. Most pilots are never sharper than right after they finish instrument training unless you develop TONS of experience.
 
Cut your losses. It's a sunk cost. If you still want to pursue aviation, try a more traditional route.
 
Kelvin said:
A few things I'll share from experience...I bought a glass 172 pre-solo. The local school after initially promsing to train me in my plane bailed on me...'insurance reasons'. Best thing ever in retrospect.

A 14K annual in a 83 hours bird is almost certainly you being taken advantage of. Look into savvyaviation.com. These guys were founded for you...

On the training...Find the oldest grizzliest CFI on the field...tell him you have a brand new plane and get him to finish your primary AND instrument training...whole you are at it, do your commercial as well. Most pilots are never sharper than right after they finish instrument training unless you develop TONS of experience.
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My suspicion is that he is being taken advantage of in the exact same manner as a case study (ironically involving a Cirrus as well) that Mike specifically detailed in one of his webinars. If I can find it, I’ll post it. Essentially, a Cirrus owner took his 22 to a new shop (for him) for annual and they were trying to sell him well over 10K in unnecessary stuff that was functioning fine.
 
Go fly every chance you get, build hours, gain experience. Don’t worry about soloing, no rush. Enjoy the training.
 
14k annual on an airplane under warranty? Something is wrong.

There are a lot of guys buying brand new 22s who don't have a ppl yet. I don't understand it, apparently it's a status symbol. One that will kill you pretty quickly if you are not careful.

If you are near NH, I'll fly it for you, keep it fresh. Cirrus should have set you up with an instructor. I would get a CSIP and tell them you want to fly at least twice a week. Schedule them out for a month, then don't ever last minute cancel on them unless you are sick. Once they trust you they will commit more of their schedule to you.

You should have started with an easier plane to fly, then transitioned. But that it's too late now. Keep at the training, then go right into your instrument training. Use a mentor pilot for a while after you get your certificates.

You have a lot of work ahead of you, be safe. A lot of work, but it's worth it.
 
Shallow pockets said:
Don’t be me.
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Sorry you got caught up in the hype. Makes me glad I owned doggy old airplanes with ancient avionics for 40+ years. Got 3700 awesome hours in the air with no regrets. They can't see how fancy your plane isn't when you're a couple thousand feet in the air.
 
Where are you located? There are many CFIs on here and people that know CFIs, if you want to investigate options to speed up your training.
 
Van Johnston said:
Don't worry, I'll never be you...financially. But if I was you, I'd consider hiring a recent puppy mill CFI graduate on salary. The benefit to you is he flies you when and where you want to go ("appeal to avoid airline hassle"), assured instructor availability, and maximum plane utilization. The benefit to him/her is they build time toward their 1,500 hours with a steady paycheck and in a nice plane.

I'm sure I am over-simplifying things and others will come along to point out why this isn't practical, but you caught me early on Saturday morning before I have finished my first cup of coffee.

Good luck in your journey.
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Sounds like really good advice to me.
 
PaulS said:
…
There are a lot of guys buying brand new 22s who don't have a ppl yet. I don't understand it, apparently it's a status symbol...
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There is a model to get four or five partners who buy the plane, lease it back to the school, then do a pt 141 PPL followed by pt 141 IRA. The school has a Cirrus specific BATD that substitutes some flight time on both ratings.
 
A brand new cirrus with 80 hours is selling for $200k over a freshly delivered one. No way you can be upside down in one

If you want to sell it at a discount, let me know. I'll take it off your hands.
 
Hmmm....wonder how much insurance is for that?.....student pilot and all. lol :D

Prolly makes $14k sound cheap. ;)
 
$14K may or may not be legitimate. We need an experienced Cirrus mechanic to chime in here. (My experience is limited to one first-generation SR20.) Other manufacturers often have items on the inspection checklist that demand an initial inspection and maybe adjustment at the first 100 hours, then every 500 hours thereafter. On top of that, there are new airworthiness limitations on a lot of new aviation machinery as well. Some of those might stipulate special inspections. The old "Inspected in accordance with FAR 43 Appendix D" doesn't cut it anymore with this sort of thing.

Yeah. Do your homework first. Buy an airplane with half the money you have available. You'll need the other half to afford to keep it and fly it.
 
I like the idea to find a cfii that will be at your beck and call and will fly you in your plane while training you for private and ir. You could do both in 1 year and get 120 hours or more in. Then your insurance would drop dramatically


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dmspilot said:
That's like buying a Porsche for a 15 year old to learn to drive.
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That poor Cirrus... at least I get to not feel THAT bad when I slam my flight school's 50 year old, beat up 150 down on the runway.

Also 15 year old me would have definitely killed myself if given a Porsche. I was bad enough in my 1.6L 4-cylinder Mazda.
 
Baked Potato said:
That poor Cirrus... at least I get to not feel THAT bad when I slam my flight school's 50 year old, beat up 150 down on the runway.

Also 15 year old me would have definitely killed myself if given a Porsche. I was bad enough in my 1.6L 4-cylinder Mazda.
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1966 white Ford Falcon station wagon, red interior. It’s what Dad had sitting in the lot. I always got the junkers to drive.
 
I have never understood the "use a simpler airplane to train in" attitude. A good instructor with a well-planned syllabus should have no difficulty, assuming available time on both parts. More systems studying on the ground, more attention to checklists.
 
ebetancourt said:
I have never understood the "use a simpler airplane to train in" attitude. A good instructor with a well-planned syllabus should have no difficulty, assuming available time on both parts. More systems studying on the ground, more attention to checklists.
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Translation…..learn in the cheaper airplane.
 
Sign up for Savvy Aviation to give you support working with mechanics. Your plane and experience should be right in their target for value. Don't give up on it, you just need an instructor with good Cirrus experience and a schedule that works for you. Have you worked with Cirrus itself or one of their big dealers to find an instructor?
 
ebetancourt said:
I have never understood the "use a simpler airplane to train in" attitude. A good instructor with a well-planned syllabus should have no difficulty, assuming available time on both parts. More systems studying on the ground, more attention to checklists.
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Yeah me neither.

I mean, who learns to ride a bicycle before buying a 200 mph sport bike? Who doesn't learn to bat against a 100 mph pitcher? Who doesn't learn to ski on double black diamond slopes? Who doesn't learn to swim in the North Shores surf?

Anything else is a total waste of time.

On the other hand, I taught my roommate in college to drive a stick shift in a 40 foot moving truck. It was actually pretty easy for him since, when empty, the engine had enough torque to handle any stupid crap he did. He did run over a few curbs in the process though. LOL
 
Dave Theisen said:
I don’t agree with the “this has to be a troll” responses because I have seen this exact scenario play out many times over the years.
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The guy that owns my airport built a business model on it. Fleecing rich folk is a fairly popular past time.

I'm not sure any of them have flown solo yet after years of training.
 
I thought on the cirrus line the company wanted you to have 25 hours duel with a cirrus certified instructor.
 
Must be a troll post. 36 replies (half of which are giving good advice) and mr. Pockets has not chimed in. This is like "here is my scenario, now discuss".
 
Salty said:
Yeah me neither.

I mean, who learns to ride a bicycle before buying a 200 mph sport bike? Who doesn't learn to bat against a 100 mph pitcher? Who doesn't learn to ski on double black diamond slopes? Who doesn't learn to swim in the North Shores surf?

Anything else is a total waste of time.

On the other hand, I taught my roommate in college to drive a stick shift in a 40 foot moving truck. It was actually pretty easy for him since, when empty, the engine had enough torque to handle any stupid crap he did. He did run over a few curbs in the process though. LOL
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or...another way to look at it...

hitting softball off a tee isn't much help wrt learning how to hit a baseball.

hitting a slow-pitch softball also isn't much help.

I'd equate the big league 100mph fastball more with a high performance fighter than a turbo SR22

(yeah, I'm just being a contrarian)
 
Bob Noel said:
or...another way to look at it...

hitting softball off a tee isn't much help wrt learning how to hit a baseball.

hitting a slow-pitch softball also isn't much help.

I'd equate the big league 100mph fastball more with a high performance fighter than a turbo SR22
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If you don't think learning to hit off a tee helps, then you haven't been a kid, or been around young kids in a long, long while.
 
Instructors act differently in a Cirrus. I wouldn't say they are nervous, but they don't let bad things develop as much as they do in a trainer. I think the pull the chute if you spin probably has a lot to do with it. Plus coming over the fence at 78 knots leaves less time to recover from stupid student tricks. You've got a $65,000 engine up front to worry about. Plus avionics that need to mastered before you solo versus a six pack and a simple radio. If you are in a rush or limited funds a 22 is not the airplane to do your initial training in. If you have a lot of time and money, have at it. There are a lot of people doing it and seem like pretty good pilots.
 
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