Off thread.. where did you do your CJ training? How do you like the little bird?
Well my "initial" SIC training was
yeeeeeeeeeears ago in the plane (a Cj3) and only served to check the boxes required by 61.55.
My "requalification" SIC training was in March in the plane (a Cj2) and was pretty much the same thing, but I had acquired a few hours in the 3 and the 2 isn't a
whole lot different (other than the FADEC thing and speeds really) so it was okay.
My "initial" PIC training was in May at FSI MCO. I felt the ground training was average at best and the simulator training was fantastic. I told the instructor from day one in the sim that I really wanted to see what the sim could do to me. Obviously he had to check boxes, but as long as we had extra time I wanted to have kind of an overload of abnormal/emergency situations. After about the 4th day of killing me, we switched it up to more real world scenarios which was
fantastic. Overall a good experience, if a bit pricey for the end product...but hey, I wasn't paying the bill. When I go in for my .297, I've
heard it's going to be at Simuflite in their Cj3 sim with Cj2 differences. That's in November or December...so we'll see. We're still trying to get new profiles/checklists by the POI and he seems to be taking his good ole time.
I like the plane. Ours is a bit of a mx pig it seems. I don't remember the Cj3 I flew ever being down this much, but I think a lot of that comes from the aircraft manager preferring to wait on anything he can. So for example, when they were replacing our TA servo last time in mx, they found that an O ring in the right gear strut was wearing. They wanted to put a loaner on it and send us on our way. He wanted to wait until the next gear inspection. So the next gear inspection came up and instead of being in/out in a day (with the swap to the refurb'd strut), we were in mx for 4 days waiting for the strut to be finished. Stuff like that.
Performance is okay. Short field performance is obviously fantastic and I've learned how to fly it so we actually see the barber pole at 410-450. Flying with the boss-man we'd see
maybe .65-.67. I find that climbing a little faster (IAS/mach) out of about 290 helps to keep the speed up at cruise.
We did an idle descent from 450 the other day when we were 45 miles from the field and the "FO" kept telling me we'd never make it. Entered the downwind on speed, configured on the profile and it was perfect...the boss-man just doesn't do stuff like that. So now that I've been cut loose, I'm
really enjoying the airplane. Obvioulsy flying safely within the limitations of the aircraft and company procedures...but right up at those limitations at times. We're finally making the time quoted on our leg lengths.
The only thing I
really don't like about our bird is our BOW is pretty heavy. We can only take about 1100# in the cabin before we're at MZFW, so I'm limited to 4-5 pax at most if they have few bags. Lots of bags and it's not good. A friend of mine knows someone that has filled the baggage area and filled the seats and gone TEB-MIA and back before...but I refuse to do crap like that. It just isn't worth it. If they want that big of a plane they can book the hawker.
Other than that, no complaints. It's actually easier to fly single pilot than the caravan was, IMO...or the baron...and definitely easier than the chieftain or Seneca I get to fly. A lot less going on.
-mini