VFR around Seattle

I got up again in N941SR yesterday for a little VFR work.  I have flown this SR20 G3 several times now and it always feels good to get back in a Cirrus.  So I decided my flight would be a round robin (or around Seattle) kind of day.  My focus was VFR flying, avionics work and some touch and go practice.  I also wanted to use this opportunity to explore the area some more and get more comfortable with the tricky airspace around Seattle.  I departed to the south out of Renton (KRNT) and flew over to Crest Airpark (S36), which is a neat little airstrip surrounded by tall trees.  This makes for a fun and scenic approach and I had never been there, so I thought why not.  Next I went over to Pierce County (KPLU) and then flew all around the Rainier MOA complex to get to Olympia (KOLM).  I flew around to the north to came back and landed on RW17 then departed right traffic to the NW over to Sanderson (KSHN).  After another touch and go, I came back towards KOLM and asked for a visual ILS to 17 and let the “highway in the sky” guide me down the ILS.  This feature and the fact that the runways show up on the PFDs synthetic vision are pretty cool and make hand flying pretty easy. 

The green boxes are the "highway in the sky"

Once I completed the ILS, I took left traffic and flew over our old home in Lacey and then over our new home to take some pictures.  I was low enough to text the wife and let her know I was coming and got a picture of her on the sidewalk. ;-)  

Hi Honey

From here I went to the north out over the sound, which was really scenic and did a touch and go at Tacoma Narrows (KTIW).  The approach into KTIW was fun since I got to fly right over Gig Harbor and also right by the Tacoma Narrow Bridge.  What a cool place!  After departing right traffic, it was due north with the intent of using the VFR corridor Seahawk Transition over Sea-Tac (KSEA) airport for a short trip home.  However KSEA tower was extremely busy and I couldn’t get in and didn’t want to clog up the frequency with my request, so I flew the scenic route to the north, by the downtown areas and the Space Needle and then came in over the East Channel Bridge and down the waterway arrival back to KRNT for a cool over the water approach to RW16. 

Downtown Seattle 

It was a fun and scenic 2.2 hours flying low in the bumps, but a great time.  I’m not a huge fan of flying low, but for my purposes it worked out well.

Plane impressions:

I will say that I’m not all that impressed with the Perspective avionics system on this plane.  I know that it is arguably a more “capable” system than the older Avidyne Integra system, but it far from being intuitive and it is quite frankly very cumbersome to use.  This makes me personally uneasy, when in the thick of things while flying; I have to fumble around to get it to do what I needed it to do.  The older Integra system may be like that at first, but I never felt as uncomfortable in that as I do in the Perspective system.  I’m sure with a little time in it, it will get better but for now I’m starting to think that the older system upgraded with GTN650s would be a far better (and cheaper) route to go in the future. 

This G3 was an early version of the Perspective and didn’t have the GFC700 autopilot.  Instead it had an STEC 55X, which was less integrated than in the Avidyne Integra system.  This unit stinks to say the least and it seems to always be behind the plane and behind the commands.  The STEC 55X worked ok in my SR22, but in this avionics package it is horrible and untrustworthy in rough air.  I had upgraded a DFC-90 in my SR22 and it was a 100 times better unit than the STEC 55X.  It is probably the best money spent to upgrade the Avidyne avionics system!

Other differences between the G2 and the G3 are the lack of rudder/aileron connect in the G3.  This I think is a good thing, but since I’m use to having it in my G2, I have to remind myself more to use my feet since I have gotten a little lazy.  Another difference I noticed is that the G3 is more trim sensitive than the G2.  It seems like every little power change, flap setting or what not had pretty significant trim adjustments.  My G2 didn’t have nearly the sensitivity issues the G3 does.  Not necessarily a bad thing, but requires some getting use to I guess.

I look forward to more flights in N941SR since I really like the plane.  Being it is an SR20, you definitely don’t have the horsepower of the SR22 to get you out of trouble, but it flies really nice and is safe and comfortable.