AOPA Pilot Magazine - July 2017 - 57

THE TOUCHSCREENS for controlling the 14-inch displays and highly

capable autopilot (far left) combined with the sidestick and singlelever engine control give the Vision Jet one of the most sophisticated and modern panels available at any price. Servo-driven
surfaces below the ruddervators control yaw, eliminating the need
for a conventional yaw damper (immediate left). The lighted aft
baggage compartment can be augmented by an optional tailcone
extension (below, far left). The composite SR piston fuselages are
built in two pieces. However, the SF50 carbon fiber fuselage is built
as one piece. The production line spools up (below).

only two differences for the SR pilot will be pressurization, which as
noted, is a nonissue, and-surprise-manipulating the landing gear. I
confess to smiling when I lifted the Vision Jet's gear lever; first time
I've ever put the gear up in a certified Cirrus. And, one more difference, the jet has a manual pitch trim wheel, another first for a Cirrus.
When walking up to an SF50, most are surprised at how big
it is. It sits relatively tall on trailing link landing gear. You step up
onto the bottom half of the clamshell door, sit on the pilot's seat,
spin your legs around forward, pull the bottom half of the door up
and the top half down, and slide way forward to the flying position. This can all be done after passengers are loaded, with the left
front seat slid back only for a moment while the pilot gets in. It's
a much better experience for all than wedging yourself between
the seats of most light jets and single-engine turboprops.
Those in the row behind the cockpit have tons of leg room and
plenty of headroom. In the way back, just one seat is against the
aft bulkhead. Or it can be positioned farther forward so the aft
passenger is stretching his legs between the two middle seats and
making him a part of the same conversation group. If needed, two
optional kid's seats, limited to 90 pounds each, can be installed on
either side of the aft seat. Any combination of the seats can be taken
out by the pilot without so much as a logbook entry or change in
the weight and balance data sheet. The Garmin system allows you
to graphically change the seat configuration for each flight, showing whether you are within the weight-and-balance envelope. Two
seats can even be folded and carried in the cube-shaped external
baggage compartment if needed. The optional extension into the
tailcone will be appreciated by anyone wanting to carry golf clubs.
Typical with FADEC engines, starting is a one-button affair,
although in this case you don't even have to introduce fuel into the
start sequence; the system does it for you. Taxiing a jet with castering nosegear will be a new experience for most, but SR pilots
accustomed to castering nosewheels will adapt quickly.
I was particularly curious how the airplane would react to
changes in thrust, given the high thrust line of the engine. During
the rollout in 2007, Cirrus officials suggested that a mechanical
thrust vectoring system would solve any tendency for the airplane
to pitch down with an increase in power, as would be expected in
such a configuration. However, the certified airplane has no such
vectoring system, as the engineers figured out ways to angle the
engine and the thrust to make it fly conventionally.
Another concern with a V-tail might be yaw stability, which has
proven to be an issue in V-tail Beechcraft Bonanzas. Again, clever
engineers at Cirrus solved this with a yaw stability augmentation system. Two small surfaces located on the aft end of the strakes below
the ruddervators are moved automatically by the flight control system as it senses changes in yaw, whether the autopilot is on or not.
The system is passive to the pilot. There is no yaw damper switch.
The results are impressive with no hunting in yaw. The ball stays centered unless the pilot uses the rudder pedals to move it.
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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of AOPA Pilot Magazine - July 2017