aerospacepilot

I am working on my instrument with about 30 hours of PIC XC. With the airspace around here, we have to head about 40 miles to get to some airports where you can shoot multiple apporaches without messing with jet traffic.

Since I need 20 more hours of PIC XC time, I planned that we would take off from my airport, do some airwork or approaches, then do a touch and go 50nm away and head back. I thought I could log the entire flight as PIC XC. However, someone told me you can only log the time to and from that airport (example, we go on a 2.0 hour flight, but we can only log 1.0 hours of PIC XC because that is how long a flight would normally take to that airport, basically the airwork does not count). Is this true?? Can someone point me to this in the FAR's.

Thank you!

rickair7777

There's no FAR requirement that you only log XC for the enroute time it takes to fly 50 NM. I have not heard of any Advisory Circular or legal opinions on this either. In most cases you can log the ENTIRE flight as XC as long as you do one touch-and-go at an airport 50+ NM away from your departure point. Once you meet that requirement you can buzz around, loiter, or land anywhere else and it's still all XC.

There is a grey area though...

Airport A: Home Base
Airport B: 30 NM from A
Airport C: 70 NM from A

Fly from A to C, do a touch & go, then fly from C-B, land, get fuel, then fly back to A. While the last leg (B-A) was less than 50NM, it is common practice log this entire trip as a single XC trip.

If you also ate lunch at B, it's still OK to call the whole trip XC. However, if you spent the weekend at B and then flew home and made a seperate logbook entry on a different day for the B-A leg, that would not be XC.

As you can see it's not clear as to exactly where you draw the line, but I would do it by date.

cbire880

The Part 1 definition of Cross Country is any flight during which you leave the immediate vicinity of an airport. For Part 61 purposes (except for ATP), the flight must include a landing at another airport. For all ratings except ATP, the airport must be more than 50nm straight line distance away. I've never heard of any restriction on logging only the "block time" during the flight. So long as you landed at an airport more than 50nm straight line, you should be able to log the entire flight as cross country. Technically, once you have a commercial, any flight involving navigation away from the immediate area(not sure if there is a formal definition for this) can be counted as cross country. Thats how military guys who fly orbits can log cross country time.

coldpilot

I did a flight very similar to this last night with an instrument student. We went from GFK-PKD-CKN-GFK. GFK to PKD is 105nm, PKD to CKN is 85nm and CKN to GFK is only 23nm. While we were at CKN we did several landings at CKN but the whole thing was logged as xc time. As said before the FAR's only specifiy that you have to do a landing at an airport more than 50nm straight line distance from your departure point. Read 61.1(3) it spells out all the requirements. Some of them vary for other ratings.

skirtinstorms

The FAA can be really contradictory with their own regs sometimes. Although only 1 destination has to be more than 50nm away to count the flight towards part 61 cross country requirements, there have been FAA inspectors and DPEs who would not let you count any leg that was less than 50nm towards any type of cross country requirement, even if it was part of a flight that included a landing more than 50nm away from the original point of departure. So, although I don't agree with these certain individuals, I would say that if you plan on using any of this time for a professional career, don't count any leg less than 50nm just to make sure that inspectors can't bag you later.

As for your original example, I have heard of a case where a pilot got lost on his cross country and eventually got to his destination in 3 hours when it should have taken him less than an hour. The FAA's ruling was that he could not log all 3 hours as cross country, even though he did not land while he was lost since doing circles over multiple areas while trying to figure out where he was is not part of a cross country procedure. Again, I do not agree with this ruling, but that was happened. Now, if the pilot had planned on doing circles, flying zig-zags or cruising at a much slower airspeed to take 3 hours to get to his destination, then he could have logged the whole 3 hours as cross country time. Sounds absurd to me, but that's my story. Don't remember where I heard it and I have nothing to cite, so take it or leave it. It's up to you. But my advice is to just stay clear of those grey areas so that you won't have to do any explaining later on in life. It's just not worth it.

rickair7777

I worked closely with the Feds & DPE's when I was a 141 flight school CP, never heard of anything like this. I specifically never heard of an intermediate stop which resulted in a <50NM leg causing any part of an otherwise legal XC flight to be "disqualified".

This sounds to me like some overly uptight junior CFI applying his own (conservative) interpretation to the regs. The industry-accepted practice is to log the whole trip in most cases. Be aware that the "regs" are not the final, definitive authority...in many cases they are modified (sometimes significantly) by FAA advisory circulars, legal interpretations, and accepted practice. The FAA is not going to win a case by prosecuting someone for doing the same thing that they've been letting 300,000 other pilots do for the last 40 years.

A little common sense is probably in order...I wouldn't log 5 hours of XC based on a single 50NM out-and-back.

WEACLRS

The only section that defines cross-country time is:

"§ 61.1 Applicability and definitions.
...
(b)(3) Cross-country time means—
...

(ii) For the purpose of meeting the aeronautical experience requirements ..., for a private pilot certificate ..., a commercial pilot certificate, or an instrument rating, ... (c), time acquired during a flight—

(A) Conducted in an appropriate aircraft;

(B) That includes a point of landing that was 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 to navigate to the landing point.

..."

My experience is much like Rick's. As long as the flight is more than 50 nm and the time logged is reasonable (meaning you shouldn't be loitering along for 3 hours), then logging it as cross-country for the purposes of meeting the experience requirements for a private or commercial certificate, or an instrument rating, is fine. Just remember...the intent of cross-country time is that it be a cross country trip, not just flight maneuvers that went over 50 nm. This is where the FAA (and DPE's) have rejected cross-country flight time in the past. The reg was written at a time when going 50.1 nm in a 152 was reasonable (it could take 40 mins or so). With today's faster training aircraft, and GPS, 50.1 nm isn't much of a cross-country any more.

aerospacepilot

I called an FAA FSDO today and they told me only the transient time between the two airports, not any of the airwork.

I was shocked but that is what they said!

cl601pilot

Touch the tires to the pavement more than 50 miles from departure and you can log the whole trip as PIC XC.