REFLECTOR: Transition training

[Richard Riley]

At 03:56 PM 4/23/2006, you wrote:
>For what its worth, when Chris took delivery of his kit, the 
>delivery guy actually recommended Grummans... cheetah/tiger.. and I 
>can see whey... I have about 50 hours in various AA5's and they are 
>slick, solid planes..
>But at this point in the game, I am not wanting "pretend" time... I 
>want honest canard time in a similar airframe... especially since I 
>will likely be conducting first flight and much of the phase one 
>testing personally...

A friend of mine, Misha Kasyan, progress until his Berkut 540 was 
just about ready to fly before he took his first lesson.  He had lots 
of other people to do the flight test for him, and he got 10 hours in 
a Grumman T-Cat (AA-1C, 115 hp) before he soloed in that plane.  He 
then had a couple of hours of dual in his Berkut with him in the 
front (he'd had dozens of hours in the back of other Berkuts 
previously) and soloed his Berkut.  He did the rest of his training 
in the Berkut, but had to go back to the T-Cat for his check rider, 
because the back seat in his Berkut doesn't have rudder pedals or instruments.