IPC, BFR, new airplane!

This evening I had a special treat. I got to fly "my" new airplane (well, part of it is mine) for the first time. I bought part of a Cirrus SR22 based at the local airport and today was "checkout" day. I went up with my co-owner's instructor to get re-aclimated with the airplane - it's been at least a year since I had PIC time in a Cirrus - and knock out a BFR (bi-annual flight review) and IPC (instrument proficiency check) at the same time. Needless to say, it was tough work, but loads of fun.

We started out in the FBO talking about the performance and systems of the SR22. From there it was on to weather briefings and what to look out for. After that he gave me our route of flight (KUZA->KFLO->KCRE->KUZA) and I went off to brief and file it.

ForeFlight Mobile 3 came in quite handy for that task, but I took my time doing it as I wanted to be completely thorough. This was not only my first Cirrus flight in a while, but my first flight as pilot in about 3 months. To top it off I was quite rusty on instrument flying tasks, so the more I could prep the better. I reviewed the weather, TFRs, and did a mental briefing of the approaches I would expect fly (based on the surface winds). I was also on the lookout for an icing conditions since winter has not completely pulled away from the southeast yet. The freezing level was between 6000' and 7000' feet with clouds around that altitude for part of our flight, so I filed for 5000'. I had activated an "alert" for my tail number at the flightaware.com web site. By the time I was heading to the car to drive across the airport to the plane, I had a text message that my flight plan was filed.

My CFI and I headed over to the plane and started getting ready to go. He was kind enough to remove the tie downs, various covers, and check the fuel and oil while I worked on getting the databases updated in the 2 Garmin GNS430s and the Avidyne MFD. The Garmins are easy - just put in a memory card with the new data - but the Avidyne needs to read from a couple of USB keys so that part took a few minutes.

I pulled up ForeFlight Checklist and did a thorough preflight check. Most of it came back to me pretty well as I went through the list. Then we hopped in and fired the engine up. I taxied out to the runway before we realized I had forgotten my foggles.

Those are glasses that are fogged on the top and sides to simulate flying in the clouds. Since I needed an instrument check out, we taxied back to the parking area and my CFI held the airplane still while I ran to the car. That goofiness over, we taxied back to runway 2 and departed.

As I brought in the full power of the airplane it gave a strong surge of thrust - the airplane was eager to getting flying. After a few quick seconds we were fast enough to fly, so I eased back on the stick and up we went. At 500' AGL I got rid of the 50% flaps and touched the CAPs parachute handle to remind myself that it was there if I needed it.

I swung the nose around to point to KFLO and called up Charlotte approach. They were quite accommodating and gave me the IFR clearance "as filed" (magic words to a pilot). Looking at the XM WX info on the MFD screen, we could see that KFLO had some decent precip around it (just as we had seen in the flight prep earlier).

When we were handed off to KFLO approach, I asked them what the rain was like there. He gave a description that matched what we saw on our screen. We were thinking of bypassing KFLO to let the rain go by, but it looked like we had a good window to get in and out before hitting any of the yellow/red returns. So we stuck with our original plan.

On the way to KFLO, my CFI "failed" alternator 1 so I could practice dealing with that. The process is to try to get it working again by cycling the power to it and reseting the breaker. If that doesn't work you want to get the load on battery 1 to a minimum. In the Cirrus that means turning off the exterior lights, GPS 2, and pitot heat (plus the air conditioner if that is running). That gets you down to a amp draw of about 6 amps. With that battery 1 should keep working for 1.5 hours or so - plenty of time to land. Even if battery 1 dies off, you still have alternator 2 and battery 2 powering the more important avionics.

At KFLO I did the VOR-A approach and went "missed" when we got to the airport. I asked for the full "hold" after that, so we did one turn in the hold before proceeding to KCRE. We went through a bit of rain here and there and spend a little time in the clouds every once and a while - but I didn't see most of that with the foggles on. We watched the outside temperature closely to make sure our risk of picking up ice was minimal to none.

On the way to KCRE my CFI "failed" the autopilot, so I hand flew for the rest of the trip down to the beach. At KCRE I did the GPS 5 approach and then a touch and go at the airport before heading back toward home: KUZA.

The rain around KFLO had increased a bit during that time, but our course had us going through a hole in the system. We did see a small bit of icy precip at one point, so we turned on the pitot heat and ran a bit of the TKS fluid to prevent anything from sticking.

After we got past KFLO we canceled IFR and stopped working with ATC on the radio. They kindly offered flight following (where they help you look for other aircraft in the area) but we declined. We did some slow flight, stalls, and steep turns. The airplane made me look pretty good though those maneuvers - I think it's stability was a huge help. We did a power off and power on stall and, especially in the power on stall, the airplane gave us plenty of warning - a strong buffet - before it wanted to descend.

My CFI had "failed" the PFD before we performed the maneuvers. The PFD is the main screen I get flight info from. That meant I had to use the backup instruments and couldn't use the heading tracking mode of the autopilot. It also meant that our traffic and terrain alert systems couldn't operate - they need heading info from the PFD. He acted as ATC while we shot the GPS 2 approach into KUZA. That went fairly well though I was a bit high at one point and had to get a touch more aggressive on the descent rate to get down where I needed to be.

We did a full stop landing after the approach so the PFD could re-orient itself properly - it needs stillness to setup if you shut it down for too long. Then we took off one more time to practice an ILS approach back into KUZA using the autopilot. On that approach I forgot to setup the ILS frequency when I should have, but we caught my error before it was a problem. After that the ILS went well. We landed and that was that - the end of a challenging but very enjoyable flight!

We taxied back to the parking spot and I had my first taste of pushing the airplane back into its home. We tied her down, cleaned out all our gear and went back to the FBO to debrief and fill out my logbook. Time for a celebratory beer!