Electric reality?
Jet transition Training
John Page takes the journey to becoming type rated on the Cirrus Aircraft SF50 Vision Jet
F
or 20 years I’ve been lucky to be an EASA, UK and FAA instrument instructor and have been operating the SR series of Cirrus aircraft since 2001, accumulating many hours on the SR20 and SR22. I also teach on the aircraft that the SF50 is often compared to, the Daher TBM series, from the 700 to 940 and PA46T Meridian and M500. I’ve also had a short stint operating a PC12NG in the past. Recently I took my SF50 Vision Jet type rating. The training has been structured and focused on safely operating the aircraft, building a wealth of knowledge of all the systems and understanding how to get the maximum out of the SF50. Materials such as paper manuals and video content access are provided a month before the training, along with other applications such as weight & balance apps, to give you a fantastic head start for the groundschool. I watched all the videos twice or three times, learned all my
40 | FLYER | June 2021
Above Author John Page in the training centre at Cirrus Aircraft’s Knoxville HQ, with the full motion Vision Jet simulator
memory items such as speeds, temperatures, limitations and first actions if a warning CAS or emergency occurs. In addition, I drew the systems such as fuel, bleed air and environmental control systems to get a better understanding. When arriving in the classroom in Knoxville I felt I already knew a lot about the SF50. The group (three or four students) groundschool then cemented my previous home learning and answered questions I had and made me learn more from other questions group members had. I was fortunate to know and already teach the Garmin G3000 flightdeck in other aircraft, nevertheless I participated in the first day which is G3000 fundamental training. Pilots in the group who had never used it before had a really good understanding at the end of the day. The next four days was a combination of groundschool, talking about different systems and cockpit procedure training, CPT. This was to make sure at the end of the five days the students were ready for the five sim sessions the following
