Originally Posted by
ATA407
So lets say this scenario you're currently a first officer at a 121 regional. You take off and depart, after flying 60 miles straight line distance you discover some mechanical issues and thus decide to turn around and fly back to airport. Do you count this as cross country time?
The only reason I could see someone asking this is if they held a restricted ATP and were trying to log XC time to get it unrestricted, in which case, this applies:
(vi) For the purpose of meeting the aeronautical experience requirements for an airline transport pilot certificate (except with a rotorcraft category rating), time acquired during a flight—
(A) Conducted in an appropriate aircraft;
(B) That is at least a straight-line distance of more than 50 nautical miles from the original point of departure; and
(C) That involves the use of dead reckoning, pilotage, electronic navigation aids, radio aids, or other navigation systems.
Otherwise, if you already have an unrestricted ATP, you can log it as whatever you like, upside down flying squirrel time or "shiny jet" time, because the regulatory aspect of logging time applies for meeting currency and certificate requirements.