If you have a couple of hundred hours on PA28s a Cirrus is a rocket ship,
I would not necessarily agree. Or at least I don't think that is the issue.
I am a very average pilot, who took well above the minimum hours to achieve every single piece of paper I ever collected, but I do have a very good understanding of aircraft systems, and technical aspects of flying generally.
I found the TB20 a doddle to convert to, at PPL+50hrs (the 50hrs was in PA28s).
And a TB20 is quite similar to an SR22 in straight performance.
I think there is no significant difference between flying at 100kt and 150kt. The sheep down below move just a little faster
A high perf plane is actually much easier to fly because you have big margins, on loading, runway length, crosswind. In 10 years I have not cancelled once due to c/w. +1000fpm is not much but is a real luxury compared to a PA28-140
The big big difference is that you have to go about things differently.
In a PA28, most PPLs just fly to an airfield, join the circuit, slow down a bit, and land. They were flying at 1500ft anyway
so they don't even have to descend much. And anyway 1500ft is pretty much the 1000ft standard circuit height, isn't it
What's a few hundred feet between friends? This is supposed to be a hobby, after all.....
In the SR22/TB20/etc anybody who goes places will be flying along at say 5000ft (5300ft or some other odd figure is better for better traffic avoidance odds, even though there is almost no other traffic above about 3000ft) and if you arrive overhead the airfield, or even just a few miles out, still at 5000ft and still doing 150kt, you are going to make a right dick of yourself, doing half a dozen orbits trying desperately to descend while slowing down at the same time
in full view of the restaurant clientele
So you need to get the old brain in gear say 30 miles out. Much further out if going IFR (I start sorting the plates out, and working out a CDA, with 100nm to run).
It took me only about 10 hrs to officially convert to the TB20, but it took a helluva lot longer to learn how to use the brain. In the PPL, I was never taught to use the brain (fly by numbers).
I think anybody who isn't totally inept can easily fly a Cirrus, to the extent of taking off, burning a load of juice for an hour, and landing on a nice long runway, on a nice day.
What is a lot harder is teaching people to use their brain in the correct way. And one cannot do it in a "club checkout" type of flight. In such a flight, all you can do is spot whether the punter does the 5000ft/150kt thing and if so, politely take over, land, and politely turn him down.
And what I found was that anybody who had the right discipline already owned their own IFR plane...
One should be taught "technical flying" in an IR, but most IR holders who are even remotely current already have their own IFR plane. It is the people who only ever flew with PPL instructors who have the basic problems.
In short, no easy solutions to this.
You also need to learn the aircraft systems. In 2002, I never found an instructor who knew how the HSI worked, how to set up the KLN94, etc. Would you get into a car without working out how to work the lights, the indicators, the wipers, the radio? Many people would, but you can't do that with a plane like an SR22 because most of the knobs will be a complete mystery