SR22 control harmony

Whoever designed the stick, control feedback and particularly trim in that aircraft needs to be offered the opportunity to serve fries at Mcdonalds, in my opinion.

I don’t see why. First of all the “stick” is not a stick but only the “left half” of a yoke (which means you fly it almost exactly as you would fly a conventional yoke), the springs in the controls are not a big deal (I got used to that on the first day) and the trim is just fine, very effective and fast.

Whoever designed the stick, control feedback and particularly trim in that aircraft needs to be offered the opportunity to serve fries at Mcdonalds, in my opinion.

I don’t know about all Cirrus aircraft, but in the G2 the flight controls are definitively in need of improvement. I wish I had the opportunity to fly one of the later Cirrus, after they increased the dihedral and removed the rudder-aileron interconnect which I think is what bothered me the most in hand-flying.

The Columbia has a (side-)stick, without the force feedback and interconnect, and that feels sooo much better.

In the Cirrus I thought I would have lots of room in front of me, but actually I felt like my legs were in a sleeping bag and the instrument panel was a lot closer than I thought it would. I have never lost as many pens as flying the Cirrus, and once you’ve lost a pen in flight, forget about retrieving it before landing. Reaching important controls like CBs, alternate air, alternate static, parking breaks is mission impossible. And then the single lever is what the French call a “falsely good idea”. And it is loud. The trim was also way too sensitive.

Other than that it flies nicely, is easy to land in all configurations provided you are capable of exercing good speed control.

I guess it just takes superior pilot skill to fly the Cirrus which is also why the insurance required I had some ridiculous number of hours in type to insure me. For the Columbia there was no such requirement although the flight characteristics are very much the same, although landing the Columbia is probably a little more challenging (precise speed control)

The difference between the G2 and the G3 is minimal. While the G3 does not have the rudder-aileron interconnect and one degree more dihedral I could never really feel a substantial difference. I have flown the G1, G2, G3, the Columbia 300, 350 and 400 and I agree that the Lancairs/Columbias have a more direct control feel. But to say that the Cirrus is an airplane that doesn’t fly nicely by hand is simply wrong.

The general aerodynamics of both planes are very similar, both wings were developed under the NASA AGATE program (Advamced GA Technology Experiments) and they share the “cuff” on the wing.

I would say that the Columbia is a hotter variant of the same general idea.

The cabin is where the Cirrus really shines. I am 5’11’’ but I would not want to be taller in the Columbia, and the visibility is much better in the Cirrus. The Columbia/Ttx also has the G2000 glass cockpit, which is very nice.

I quite like the Cirrus, once you’ve got used to ‘stabbing’ the trim. Later models are certainly much better. That said, I never really warmed to the mechanical single level power control as it was just a fudge with two real settings; “Noisy and Thirsty” or “More Noisy and More Thirsty”.

But to say that the Cirrus is an airplane that doesn’t fly nicely by hand is simply wrong.

You just have to love objectivity

Interesting! Have you ever really studied the way the single lever control works? You can set it to almost all combinations of MP and RPM you want, just like the manual prop control.

1. Lever Full forward: Max RPM, Max MP
2. Pulling back the Lever the MP stays at max available until you have reduced the RPM to 2500.
3. If you pull the power back further you reduce the MP and the RPM.

So what exactly are you missing?

The only difference is that with the conventional you can control the prop between 2300-2500 RPM. On the other hand Continental issued a bulletin that says cruising below 2300 RPM is bad because it can induce crankshaft counterweight failures.

Of course you cannot cruise at 2100-2300, and some pilots like to do that. I don’t. There is no benefit operating in the 2300-2500 rpm range.

This thread is about control harmony and I am not sure that the throttle and rpm levers get involved in “harmony”… however this

There is no benefit operating in the 2300-2500 rpm range.

is highly improbable, given easily obtainable data such as in this thread about the Cirrus prop rpm lever STC

The “Tamarack prop control STC” has been flown by many Cirrus pros, and really nobody saw an advantage. For some time Cirrus Europe thought about selling the STC, but when the CEO, a guy i know very well, tested it, he came to the opinion that “it’s not worth it”. He told me that one week ago.
But whatever, the possibility exists, the whole kit is $ 3500. It is not a very successful STC, but it’s great for traditionalists who simply hate the single power lever. Looks less impressive aswel! ;-)

Back to control harmony: Yes, the G3, G5 and G6 models do have a nicer control feel, but you can really only feel it when you fly a G2 and a newer version on the same day.

This is the TCM bulletin:
www.tcmlink.com/pdf2/CSB09-11A.pdf

Although I believe that the current SR22 has the best systems in the piston league, the flying handling characteristics are lacking, particularly with the SR22TN which is nose heavy and dares you to be off speed or flare at the wrong point. This is a great machine using the autopilot, but I very much dislike the control harmony. I have no objection to the side stick as it is very easy to adopt to, but coming from a Bonanza background, it is not up to par with respect to control harmony or landing. The Bonanza makes the pilot look good almost no matter how the botch the approach. The SR22TN I have about 100 hours in is not that forgiving and requires more attention in flight when hand flying.