What 'high and fast' airplane should I start with?

The biggest thing people don’t expect when suddenly jumping into fast planes is the speed at which stuff happens, particularly on critical phases of flight like departures and approaches. You have to know your aircraft’s systems and be able to know how the systems operate without hesitation. You don’t have the luxury of time like you do in simple prop GA planes. There’s no time to think. You get a command by ATC, and you have to do it NOW because of the speed you travel at. IMHO, it’s better to transition to something intermediate before jumping into the top end fast planes.

Intermediate planes like the TBM or Vision Jet are a great stepping stone. You learn to use the more complicated G3000 and familiarize yourself with it, you get both a nice speed and altitude boost from a Bonanza, but it’s still pretty manageable.

TBM will cruise at FL310, but typically tops out at 300 kts with a nice tail wind. Not a bad transition plane to jets though. You get to fly high, but don’t have to deal with the super complex systems of the Proline 21 in the CJ4 (which is indeed a good step towards airliners) or the speed at which things happen in fast jets.

The Vision Jet transitions you to a jet and performs about the same as the TBM in terms of speed and altitudes.

The HondaJet is a step up in both speed and altitude from that and you can hit close to 400 kts at FL400+ in the right conditions. It has far more depth in its G3000 than the TBM, although far more automated systems that will alleviate the workload from the pilot.

And if you’ve been flying the Bonanza, you’re already very familiar with the G1000. The G3000 is definitely different and deeper, but Garmin systems have a lot of commonality, so the learning curve is definitely a lot less steep.

The CJ4 is a great plane as well. I love it in every way. But learning to use the FMS effectively is going to take some time if all you’re used to flying is the G1000. The plane itself isn’t complicated to fly manually, but it’s a compeltely different FMS from anything Garmin. It’s closer to what you’d find in an airliner. So it’s a great transition plane if you’re looking to fly the big boys.

In the end though, this is a sim. You can fly whatever you want. Try the various planes you have, or buy the C510 and try it out. See what works best for you.

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