![]() I changed course after that first visit to Cirrus, pursuing a track in aviation journalism instead of a sole focus on flight training. The limited-edition paint scheme makes for an aircraft that brightens up even the cloudiest days. That promise back in 1999 has been fulfilled-in the carbon fiber of the airframe in front of me, as well as in the Cirrus Vision Center in Knoxville, Tennessee, that has encased into brick and mortar the commitment to training driven by a core Cirrus philosophy. Now, almost 22 years later, I’m like Marty McFly stepping out of the DeLorean into the future (in this case, greeting the 8,000th SR-series airplane to fly). Two flights, actually: one with instructor Gary Black to get accustomed to the airplane’s unique stall-resistant aerodynamic characteristics and one with test pilot Scott Anderson to solidify that first acquaintance. As part of those 72 hours that tested my potential hardiness in a North Country winter, I had the chance to fly N204CD, just after the SR20′s original FAA certification the previous October. I’d been invited to Duluth to interview with Cirrus Design’s nascent training department-before their team determined that they would contract with the University of North Dakota for the airplane’s initial courseware. ![]() On that day, I was driving a Sube around Duluth in between massive snowbanks, engaged to think through a similar puzzle: how to train pilots to fly a brand-new concept in airplanes, the Cirrus SR20. As an assistant editor in Jeppesen’s aviation-courseware department, I’d been thinking through the mechanics of flight training every day, working to translate abstract concepts into print and onto the screen. The bitter cold of a February day in Minnesota in 1999 etched itself in my memory like frost on the windshield of an old Subaru hatchback.
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