I agree with IO540 that the availability of a chute could lead to being relaxed about the weather.
That's not what I said ...
I said it makes one more comfortable flying over mountains and forests and at night. That's a big difference.
Flying into crap
weather just because one has the chute is utter stupidity and only a complete idiot would do it, because it is equivalent to saying that if one gets into some horrid weather and gets iced up and plummets, or gets an in-flight structural failure, one will pull the chute, write off the £250,000 plane, get out (hopefully) and walk away while sticking a finger up to everybody else.
Not saying people don't do this (I think some do, unwittingly, often through crap training) but it doesn't make it any less daft.
Some people may not agree with me, but I think that for a PPL with 50-100 hrs TT, a 300HP Cirrus is going to be too much of a handfull until they have a reasonably amount of post PPL experience (unless they actualy did all their flying in the aircraft)
Agreed, especially with the bit in brackets. But, in the UK for sure, training in an advanced type is not easy to arrange. Getting insurance for the solo portions of the PPL might be impossible. And very few PPL-level instructors understand even a GNS430. In 2002 I bought a new plane with "state of the art 1990s avionics" and never found an instructor who knew how it worked. I did work it out eventually but it's not a procedure I would recommend
Sheer power is not a problem, IMHO. Power means that you can e.g. go around and if you don't get rid of the landing flap, the thing still goes up like a rocket. It makes for a much safer plane. And the mental difference between 100kt and 150kt is nothing. You have to think ahead; one can enter a circuit at 100kt but not at 150 without looking like a right d*ck
It is weather, advanced systems, and generally thinking ahead that requires training.