Unrestricted ATP time question for military
 

Hello,
As a Navy F/A-18 pilot, it’s looking like my total time will be just shy of the needed 1500 hours for an unrestricted ATP. Is it permissible to add a time multiplier to military ONLY hours in order to meet the 1500 hour requirement for the unrestricted ATP? To me, this would be logical since civilian hours count from engine start to shutdown. My time is all logged takeoff to land plus 5 minutes. If not, should I essentially plan for an unrestricted ATP and a short time in the regionals? I appreciate the input in advance.

Apologies if this has been posted elsewhere but I haven’t been able to find an answer so far.

Yes. Covert your Navy logbook to a civilian logbook and add .3 per sortie. It will be a non-issue with the FAA when you apply for your ATP. Also remember some of the sim time from your ATP/CTp course can be used towards the total time requirement as well.

Yes, this is entirely in accordance with FAA time logging rules.

However... some airlines will apply their own correction factor for military time. They will want you to report your mil time "as is" from your mil docs. So if you're going to create a civilian logbook, might consider logging the original mil time, and then using one of the unlabeled columns in the logbook to add the conversion factor. That way you'll both mil and civilian totals, and can show your homework in detail.

excellent point.

You should reference the FAA’s logging rules in the FARs for how civilians are supposed to log time.

CFR 1.1: definitions

“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”

So the FAA says loggable flight time is from initiating taxi (moving under own power) to chocks.

That said, most civilians use Hobbs meter time in their logbooks. That doesn’t make it right, or make it such that you get to willy nilly add time to your logbook with no reference. Adding a .3 multiplier or per sortie addition works for specific airlines in accordance with their specific guidelines, but not in pursuit of ratings with the FAA.

What you can do, though, is show a FSDO that you have taxi time that would count as flight time under FAR/CFR 1.1, but which the navy doesn’t allow you to log (in other words taxi in/out time in excess of the 5 mins the navy gives you), and make your case that way. That’s what an Eagle driver bro of mine did. He basically had to get a logbook entry for each sortie showing taxi time exceeding 5 minutes, total it up, and add it to his total to make 1500.

Also, once you get to the airlines, flight time is based on block time (brake off/doors closed to brake on/doors open), which also doesn’t meet the flight time definition...but no one cares. It generally matters just for getting ratings. And some DPEs/APDs/FSDOs likely won’t care if you do your own conversion. But I’d know what the regs say when you’re justifying doing something.

How much taxi time is there to the catapult and after the trap?

Enough.
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