Originally Posted by
USMCFLYR
This is something that many military pilots (at least that I talked too) didn't understand until preparing their ATP forms. In my case, I was eventually led to believe that it DID require the landing at an airport greater than 50 nm away, so I went back through my logbooks and calculated those flight and then started logging in such a way too. As you said, MANY of my flights takeoff and return from the same field so I started to get a little worried about that 500 x/c requirement. At a later time I found out the correct method (as you state above) is the distance greater than 50 nm and almost all of my flights meet that requirement.
From what I've been told the reg was written particularly with military pilots in mind. It was because of the military, including the Coast Guard's, unique missions that are the reason for this and I believe gets abused by many a civilian pilot. No one can tell me that a B-2 flying all the way to the Middle East and lands back at its original point of takeoff in the US does not count as a x-country. But a civilian pilot flying a 172 .9 to overfly an airport 50 nm away is definitely an abuse of the rule. As a survey pilot, I never logged a flight as x-country unless I landed and I've flown over 150 miles to a survey site.
The whole point of the x-country time in the first place is to prove you can navigate an airplane from point A to point B and honestly, going 50 nm is kind of a joke (You can see your destination and your point of takeoff at the same time if you're at 10,000' anywhere that's not mountainous). I think the FAA realizes that cfi's would never get x-country time though if they made the requirement farther. Just do a touch and go and don't abuse the rule that was intended for something else or don't be surprised if you get called on the carpet for it.