Starting with this comment from the Vision Jet thread:
A 500 hour pilot with loads of cash obviously who has not hung onto an airplane for more than a year so far to fly this jet?
What are your views on minimum experience for flying a jet.
This particular pilot who is the first to get every new Cirrus model was also discussed on COPA, and people who know him seemed to suggest he was a very careful, meticulous pilot who got a lot of training (and also a nice guy personally).
Obviously there is also the question how to measure experience. Flying hours seem to me a very vague proxy since you can spend one hour in the air in so many different ways. So what makes you a “safe” jet pilot?
And is the powerplant even a factor, or is it only speed? I have also heard many times that a Cirrus was harder to fly because it was going so fast. When I started flying them, I was wondering what people had been talking about, as I still always find it too slow. 
Or may such diagnoses of other people’s flying skills and what types they should be flying just be hidden envy? But then we see a TBM or Cirrus pilot lose it in IMC and read on the forums “it was just too much of an airplane for him”.
Personally, I would attribute much more weight to systems and their knowledge, than aircraft handling in general. If you take the Vision Jet with its Garmin G3000, it is supposed to be a simple transition from the G1000. And people will get the required training, so I personally don’t fear for their safety even if they fly a “jet” with some low-ish number of hours.
Rwy20 wrote:
What are your views on minimum experience for flying a jet.
200 hours. This is what the airlines require when they recruit new FOs. In most cases it works out.
For single-pilot bizjet operation the answer is a lot more difficult and depends entirely on the pilot. I have met pilots (and students) who will never be able to safely fly any jet in any position, whatever number of hours they fly. These usually fail to get their type rating, at least when attending a decent training organisation.
And there are others who will be perfectly able to fly a light jet with the same 200 hours of an airline FO cadet. When I got my license, I was left loose at flying unsuspecting passengers in light twins with very basic instruments, no automation, no anti-ice, no nothing. None of them got killed in the process. Compared to that, a modern light jet designed for single-pilot operation is a flying videogame and children’s play…
In practice insurance will be the controlling factor for single pilot jet ops.
When I got the 510 with 1100 hours, 600 in SETP, very current but no jet time I was considered low hours for insurance purposes. From a type rating point of view while challenging it was straightforward. The biggest issue is avionics. Had I been converting to a PL21 aircraft I am certain it would have been far more difficult.
200 hours. This is what the airlines require when they recruit new FOs. In most cases it works out.
Of course it “works out”.. but these guys don’t fly solo and don’t have to define their own operations procedures. Can’t be compared at all.
For private jet ops, I would put the number much higher (not as a legal minimum of course, just as ballpark for “best practice”). Maybe 750 hours. And yes, I do think that all in all, hours flown (within GA) is a valid proxy for “experience”. …Which of course doesn’t mean a 750hr pilot might not make stupid things in a jet…
JasonC wrote:
PL21 aircraft
That is the Pro Line 21 avionics from Rockwell Collins, for those that had to Google it like me. :)
To go from a SR22 to a Vision Jet, there are really only three items that will be additional to what one is used to
- Different engine response, so needs a more stabilised approach
- Retractable (because they forgot to put on the magic SR22 fixed gear that only costs 1-2kt ;-)
- Pressurisation
Ok, and it is a bit faster, but not hugely so, and you need more runway. A fully loaded DA40 with the 1st generation Thielert needs more, probably…
So while a step up, it is still below a Mustang, an Eclipse.
Can’t really see why a meticulous pilot with a few hundred hours shouldn’t be able to fly one of them safely.
Yes, it will attract the occasional disaster-to-be, but that is not unique to the type (remember the fake ATPL who ran out of fuel in an uninsured, unmaintained multi-crew Lear; single-pilot ops, of course)?
In some ways it will be comparable to moving to a SETP like a Meridian/TBM. Although speed control on final will be more important given lack of Beta/Reverse.
- Same speeds
- Same altitudes
Actually the new title doesn’t reflect what I wanted this discussion to be about. First of all, I doubted that “number of hours” is meaningful for this decision. And then I didn’t want to limit it to the Vision Jet.
I changed the title but left the “Cirrus” in it because IMHO this is mostly about the Cirrus jet. It is the only one being heavily pushed right now at private pilots, especially ones coming from the SR22 background.
Previous threads on flying jets generally are here here here and others. You will find views in those threads on the ease or otherwise of flying single pilot jets; these have mostly been around “for ever” and the numbers in private pilot hands have not seen any real changes over years – same with the TP community too.
