Blueskies21

The Company is going to log flight time for the purposes of preventing you from timing out on FAR 117 flight time.

For other purposes they're going to use block time.

They're also advising us to log block time.

Of course, you're just as obligated as the company to be aware of your flight time for legality and that will be difficult if you're only tracking block.

I've been corrected by 2 year FO's that this is something I shouldn't worry about.

You can choose for yourself what to do with that information.

Shadre Reevis

It is interesting that 121.436 does not specifically require flight hours to upgrade, it only says hours. Once the door closes you are still operating as a crew member with intention to fly, even if you are not 117 flying yet. Same principle with the old Hobbs meters running before movement. Block hours should be sufficient for logging purposes.

There is no maximum for block in FAR 117 AFAIK, the limitation only applies to flight time. So, I don't see why you couldn't block more than 8/9 hours as long as your flight time remains within limits. But if you do record more than 8/9 hours of block in a day (good luck with that), just be ready to explain the difference between block and flight time, and how you and your company keep track of each. On the RARE occasion that you ever get that much block, just make a small note of the day's total flight time in the logbook..

Shadre Reevis

You need to read more than 1.1


What is flight time?
14CFR 1.1
(1) Pilot time that commences when an aircraft moves under its own power for the purpose of flight and ends when the aircraft comes to rest after landing;

But what is pilot time?
14CFR 61.1
Pilot time means that time in which a person—
(i) Serves as a required pilot flight crewmember; (ie door closure, meaning block......)

So, should we log pilot time or flight time in our logbooks?
14CFR 61.51
(c) Logging of pilot time. The pilot time described in this section may be used to:
(1) Apply for a certificate or rating issued under this part or a privilege authorized under this part; or
(2) Satisfy the recent flight experience requirements of this part.

Blueskies21

That's the best argument I've seen to support block vs flight.... you're absolutely correct 121.436 a.3 itself says "hours" which fully supports your argument. However 121.436 c says "(c) For the purpose of satisfying the flight hour requirement in paragraph (a)(3) of this section, a pilot may credit 500 hours of military flight time obtained as pilot in command of a multiengine turbine-powered, fixed-wing airplane in an operation requiring more than one pilot." There's no other hour requirement in (a)(3) except the 1000 hrs, so I think we're forced to conclude that must be a flight hour requirement.

You're also correct as far as I know about there not being a block hour limit in 121 or 117 but I'd still be careful about logging more than 9 hours a day in my logbook because I'm not real interested in having a block hour vs flight hour discussion in an interview. As we all know, block hour logging has been the standard but we didn't have a good way to track flight hours, now we do.

Shadre Reevis

My post above explains how civilians can log time to meet experience requirements. I have no idea how the military logs their time, they are separate from the FAA. You can't bridge the two so easily.

vessbot

(b)Logbook entries. For the purposes of meeting the requirements of paragraph (a) of this section, each person must enter the following information for each flight or lesson logged:

(1) General -

(i) Date.

(ii) Total flight time or lesson time.

Shadre Reevis

So the same reference tells us two different things. Clear as mud.

Baradium

"The company tracked aircraft movement for legality, for consistency I have always logged aircraft block time, this was also the company approved method of logging."

It's pretty easy to explain. Of course, if you log time by the leg the chances of anyone adding up daily flight time in the first place to see what it added up to is between slim and none.

I log by the 1/10th of the hour for my logbook, but legality is done by the minute since that is available. Thus when I was limited to 10 hrs in a day earlier in my career, I have days with more than 10 hrs as measured the 10th, but under 600 minutes so still legal.

If you're still caught up in this legality question, you need to get an actual FAA response. You could also ask the company if the FAA has signed off on this method (if it's in the FOM the FAA has signed off on it and that is the legally expected method of logging). What will be more likely to get you in trouble is changing how you log time based on how it suites you (IE, log by block until you approach 9 hours in a day and then logging movement because you are afraid of having more than 9 hrs in the logbook).

If the FAA has signed off on a method, regardless of how you like to interpret the regulations, you are legally able to use it.

Shadre Reevis

Yes, this probably won't be resolved here until some brave soul calls the MSP fsdo and shares their results....

Blueskies21

Actually I think Shadre's explaination is the best one, I'll take that.

I wonder if that's what the company was considering and just dumbed it down for the memo?

For my own sake I'm still not going to log more than 9.