Originally Posted by
MikeInTx
I have heard a few commercial students as well as a CFI at my school mention that during their commercial training when they were supposed to be on solo cross countries, they stopped and picked up friends/family at small airstrips along the route...is this technically against the rules?
It depends. Talking part 61, you need 250 hours, including 20 hours of commercial dual, and 10 hours of solo. The remaining 230 hours (minus what you had from PPL training) can be either dual OR solo.
If you are just building time solo cuz it's cheaper than having a cfi along, you can legally take pax...UNLESS you are logging that flight towards the actual required 10 hours solo, or the required solo XC or night pattern work. The flight school may or may not be cool with it, but it's FAA legal as long as you did the required solo flying by yourself.
Basically if you take PAX or a CFI, don't log solo.
Exception: If you are doing your initial commercial in a twin, you can bring your instructor along for the "solo" work as long as you perform the PIC duties.
Slice: you do need some solo time for the commercial, but after that I can't think of any reason to log it either. If you converted your military rating to a commercial you may not have known that.