Vectors To Final

I went up for a bit tonight to try about the G1000/Perspective system in the dark for the first time. I do very little (essentially zero) night flying, but when I have done it in the past I've really enjoyed it.  There's next to no one else flying, the air is smooth, and the sights are unique - at least when you're near a city, in the country there's very little to see. I took off just as it was getting pretty dark, careful to keep the power below 102% or so.  I made it a short flight, basically looped around the city and then shot a GPS approach back into the airport.  I found the airplane to be even better for night flying than the G2 Cirrus I used to fly regularly.  That's for a few reasons: Landing lights - the lighting is a bit better, though maybe not quite as much as I would have expected, with the wing tip recognition lights.  Every bit helps though. EVS - the IR/Visible camera system was mostly helpful on the ground to s...

I recently bought a small GPU from Sporty's so I could do database updates and avionics exploration on the ground without concern over draining the batteries in the SR22. I went with this one rated for 35 Amps max.   So far I haven't seen the plane draw more than 10 amps, so 35 looks to be plenty.  It seems well built and was easy to use. Here's how I use it: Hook up wires on GPU and power it up Remove GPU cover on airplane (quarter turn screw) Plug GPU into airplane Turn on Batt 1 switch Verify that GPU indicates reasonable amperage draw (7-10 amps in this case) Turn on Avionics switch if required Then when its time to turn everything off, reverse the order.

   Spent an hour flying with John Collins yesterday.  He's a writer, aviation avionics/ADS-B expert, instructor, and my hangar neighbor.   We focused on making better use of vertical navigation while shooting GPS approaches, using the autopilot's VNV function.  Also spent time testing out Stratus 2 with the latest ForeFlight Mobile update.  Great way to spend a Saturday afternoon!

I recently started flying a newer Cirrus (with the Garmin Perspective/G1000 system) and needed to work on my transition training. I already had some time behind the TAT turbo-normalized engine in the new plane, so the main focus was learning the new avionics.  I'm lucky to live near an expert Cirrus instructor (Mark Wages of North Star Aero ) so scheduled a day to fly around with him, shoot approaches, do some basic airwork, and learn the various failure modes of the new setup. It was the perfect time to get fully IFR current and get a flight review knocked out at the same time.  It also let me feel much more at home in the airplane, as I have so much time in the Avidyne system that the Garmin one required a reset of my muscle memory ("oh yeah, the heading bug knob is over  there now"). I picked up the plane from GMU on Friday and flew it straight home.  Then Saturday morning I took off to meet Mark.  We started with a ground review of systems a...