ATP & 500xc
 

Hello,
I have a quick question about the 500 hour cross country requirement for the atp. I'm starting the application process to some regionals, however with the atp rule coming into affect how will this effect me?
I had a somewhat unusual job flying the Lake Erie islands. Where the flights were all within 20nm. I well exceed the other minimums. When would I have to have the 500 hours? Would I be able to build these hours while at an airline? Or do I need them as a hiring requirement?

Thanks,
Ken

I think most airlines are now requiring all the ATP minimums, at least eagle is. For pilot certification a x-country is 50nm miles.

At this point, you pretty much need all the ATP mins because airlines won't have time (or the desire) to bring you back for an ATP ride in late July.

Not sure how much XC you have but even if you got hired today it would be hard to get 400 XC by Aug 1st.

If we had this conversation last summer, you would have been OK...they could put you on line to get your XC and then give you an ATP ride at your recurrent. But I think we're past V1 on this now.

Ok thanks.

Remember that for the ATP the 50nm leg doesn't require a landing. So if you take off and went to say a VOR 50nm away and came back home, that counts for ATP XC time. Maybe that will help you make some of your flights possibly work.

How do people note this in their logbook? Make a new column or atp x-cty?

Not a bad idea. Or use an asterisk or some other means of separating student, 135, and ATP XC time.

Once you have a commercial licence any flight where you landed at an airport other than the one you took off from is cross country. There is no distance required. I would not separate it, just keep adding to your x-country column.

Not true for the ATP requirement. You must have gone a distance of at least 50NM from your departure airport to count it as xc for the purpose of the 500hrs xc for ATP minimums.

So there isn't a required distance when it comes to the atp xc requirement?

There is, 50nm. You must go at least 50nm from your point of departure to count it as cross country for the ATP, however you do not have to make a landing.

If you look in the first section of 61.1 under definitions of cross country...

(4) Cross-country time means—

(i) Except as provided in paragraphs (b)(4)(ii) through (b)(4)(vi) of this section, time acquired during flight—

(A) Conducted by a person who holds a pilot certificate;

(B) Conducted in an aircraft;

(C) That includes a landing at a point other than the point of departure; and

(D) That involves the use of dead reckoning, pilotage, electronic navigation aids, radio aids, or other navigation systems to navigate to the landing point.

(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.

Any airport to airport is x-country, but in terms for airmen certification is 50nm.

Thats only for Part 135 IFR mins. The ATP requires 50nm but no landing.

^^^THIS

See above. Also for logging it. Once you get your commercial theres only 2 reasons for XC time, part 135 mins (point to point) and ATP mins (over 50nm but no landing). Use your XC section for ATP XC and create one for point to point XC. When you log a 50nm with no landing its simple, just put departure airport, point you went over 50nm (ABC VOR), and landing point.

You sir, are seriously mistaken. You need to refer back to 61.1 before making a statement like that....

(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.

XC for students up to commercial: > 50NM straight line from point of origin and a LDG.

XC for ATP: > 50 NM straight line from point of origin (no LDG required).

XC for 135: Point A to point B and a LDG at B (no minimum distance).

It was always sold to me as any flight from airport to airport was a cross country for the ATP. I don't know whats right or wrong but if 50Nm is required, the airlines will be more desperate. CFI's don't fly many of their lessons over 50NM. Now what you will see is instructors taking students for 50nm joy rides at the students expense.

Its as simple as reading the requirements for the ATP from your FAR! It says 50nm straight line but doesn't mention a landing. Its honestly not a secret or anything its just a lot of mis-education.

That's quite an insult to the CFIs out there. Lots of 121, 135 and 91 subpart K drivers also maintain their cfi tickets, and that's quite the insult to them as well. If you would pause and think prior to rambling, you would realize there will be opportunities within the instrument and commercial flight-courses for the young cfi to gain x/c time without ripping the students off. Integrity goes a long way in this business...

That's 135 XC.


ATP XC needs > 50NM, but no LDG required.


This is all crystal clear in the regs, no grey area whatsoever. It isn't spelled out in one place, so it takes some digging to find all the relevant paragraphs. But you can take my word for it on this one.

I am in the same scenario. 1200 hours 50 ME and only 260 cross country. I am doing all that I can to log XCs as a CFI. I hate to be negative, but I don't think I am going to reach 500 hours of XC once I hit 1500. Oh well, bad timing I suppose. Gotta keep pluggin' away...

Hmm. I'm at 770TT and 380XC already, and I'm an instructor too. Every instrument flight we have to go almost 50nm anyway to get an ILS... Makes it pretty easy. I get nothing on the PPL flights, though. Design a sequence of approaches that takes you 50nm away and comes back... 4 or 5 approaches. String em in a line, based on where they start, etc.

When I hit 1500 hours I was working as a full time CFI and only had about 280 cross country. It took me 6 months of flying at the airlines and 1750TT before I reached ATP minimums. The new rule is going to be the hardest on CFIs probably.

I think it's going to be even harder on skydiver pilots. They go above the departure airport than come right back.

Well, they elected to work for a skydive outfit, eh?:confused:

I don't understand how you could only have 280 XC at 1500 hours CFIing. Did you have mostly private pilot students? If you're doing any instrument training at all, it's not tough to get XC hours... and you were from DVT right? never went to P08? ;)

Same boat, almost 1400 TT 500 ME and only 350 XC.... Unfortunately as an instructor in part 141 environment its pretty hard to build XC time...

I'm in 141 too 765 TT 380 XC... How do you guys do instrument training? At my 141 school, as long as we do each type of approach once, that's pretty much what the syllabus requires. So you just need to make sure that you're travelling towards an XC airport as you do your approaches. String along a few airports... Unless for some reason they give you really short flights for instrument or something, ours are pretty long.

It's called ethics.

If going 50 miles makes for better training and allows the student to accomplish the course faster, then great, go for it. If not, then it's the wrong thing to do and you are setting an example of personal gain to the student and everyone in aviation. If you are at DVT, you have a myriad of approaches to choose from without having to go 50 miles, and they do most of their instrument stuff around there at night if I recall (been a while since I flew into PHX at night).

Sometimes there are ways to get that 50 miles on flights that wouldn't normally be, but it has to be ethical and pass the test of being a benefit to the student, not just so they'll get experience, but also cost and efficiency. Often times doing two lessons (one flight to destination, then one flight back) is a total waste, as there's no time for the brain to assimilate any new information and really think about how to do better on the next flight. Although flying once a week is going to incur more cost, flying multiple times a day usually has similar results in my experience in terms of retention of knowledge, skill and progression.

I think building xc depends where you instruct. I'm a firm believer in flying to other airports to do approaches rather than constantly doing approach after approach at your home airport where eventually the student memorizes all the altitudes and fixes. I like to mix it up so the student isn't always familiar and has to be paying attention to what he's doing during each approach. I instruct at EVV (Evansville, IN) and there are 3 other airports within 20 miles and a 4th within 30. If a student is working on his instrument rating he knows enough to realize that if I'm taking him 50 or more miles away to do approaches that I'm wasting his time and hard earned money. The only time I can do that is if its one of the required xc's for the rating or he still needs to build some xc time to meet the 50 hours required for an instrument rating. Now if you instruct in a not so densely populated area I could see where you might log more xc time because there aren't nearby airports. With that said though unless you instruct at an actual flight school I think most mom and pop flight instructors like myself are having a hard time building time because the cost of flight training is through the roof nowadays. I rarely have ANY instrument students and about 80% of my private students get no more than 20 hours and I never hear from them again. When I first started instructing 2 years ago I started doubting myself as an instructor thinking maybe it's my teaching skills scaring students away but after talking to other instructors at the nearby airports they're seeing the same results. Flight training is just too expensive now for students to stick with it long enough and help you log some xc time. Im at 720tt with only 180xc. Luckily, my FBO has a charter department and I'm currently at Flight Safety getting a SIC rating in a beechjet. So when I do hit the 1500 hour mark ill have my 500xc. But I think any instructor out there who isn't in a situation to get some xc time somewhere else is going to have a hard time getting that 500xc

James, I agree that you should do what is of benefit to the student, although I will argue part of the reason we agree to instruct for low wages is because we're being paid partly in flight hours. Don't go out of your way to make it XC at the detriment of the student, but be smart about it too, even within a 141 syllabus you can get it done. I'm not saying force it, but if you can easily make it happen in a way that's beneficial for the student too, go for it. Just to give you a typical example of Phoenix from Deer Valley... If I have two students, I'll take off, we go do the GPS 4R at KCHD, the ILS 5 at KCGZ, maybe VOR 5 KCGZ, and the VOR 5 to P08. Swap students at P08. Second student flies GPS 30L to KIWA, ILS 30C KIWA, VOR-C KSDL, and maybe the GPS 25L at KDVT. You can mix and match it, but there's actually very little straight and level time, we're going from approach to approach, and I try and change it up and make sure the students are doing different approaches as much as practical. (Although I try and make sure the students get a little breathing room in between approaches, going too hectic with it can just be frustrating to the student and is a detriment to learning.) If I have just one student and a shorter flight, I usually can't make it XC, and that's okay, but when you have the opportunity find a smart way to do it.

Most self-pay students need the 50 XC for the instrument rating anyway. At ATP, I got all the XC time for the instrument rating during my training for the rating itself.

I did most of my training and my first 500 hours of instructing out of a Class C airport in the midwest. We could do 7 different approaches and a few holds without ever going more than 10 miles from the airport and that's usually how we did things in order to save time and money. Commercial cross countries and time building were almost all solo so I had no way to log time on those. I had 700TT and about 100XC or maybe a bit less when I moved to PHX.

I got down to P08 as much as possible by volunteering for cross countries but I had a lot of instrument students and during instrument training it was kind of a waste of time. There's no sense in making a Chinese guy fly 40 miles out of the way to do a VOR approach to P08 that he'll never do on a checkride. TransPac was really about training students to pass a checkride, not training them to fly a variety of approaches. Sad but true.

Had I stayed in the midwest as an instructor I probably would have had about 100 XC when I hit 1500TT. PHX is what helped me build the XC.

Sooo, what job doesn't give you work experience while you are getting paid? I know we take the jobs we can find, but that attitude is killing us. Why should major airlines pay a lot if they are providing experience you are going to use when you apply to Fed Ex or UPS? Why should Fed Ex pay a lot if it's experience you'll use to apply as a Boeing test pilot? You are not being "paid" in flight hours and no one should ever tell you that. If they do, you need to kindly correct them.

If you can work the flight so you get the 50 miles, great. A student being able to do 4 approaches in succession is pretty amazing and probably doesn't last for long (because if they can do it, they are ready for their checkride). But yep, you can be creative and often get the distance. Two students is a way it might work out. Volunteering to take any and all XCs is another good way. This can really tax you and cut into your "off time", but it's one of those things that is worth it. Mine took more than 1500 hours, I'll say that much.

It is not so bad if you plan ahead. For an example I have roughly about 250 hours of cross counties to go. Maybe we should all set goals. Here is my goal: fly 15-20 hours of cross countries a month. Hopefully more. It is very realistic and can be done without being unethical. Which means I should be in good shape in 12-16 months. Ouch. I never thought I'd be instructing for 2-3 years! The game has changed so we have to adapt. By then I would have well over 1500 hours. The other option is to of course find a part 135 gig somewhere. For those new CFIs entering the field bank on working for at least 2 years.

I think we are all way over analyzing this whole thing trying to be the ethics police and armchair lawyers and such. Getting a XC under your belt is only a matter of 50 miles, even with an few approaches this can be done in less than 2 hours if you have another airport close enough. I know what your going to say, "But 'I' don't have one that close. I'm just talking in generalities here. There are plenty of things that can be discussed on the 30-40 min cruise portion of a short XC!

I'd be willing to bet if you just talk to your students about it, they would be willing to go an extra .3 or .4 to get that XC in THIER logbook as well, especially if they are planning on making flying a career. If they are, they will need the 500 XC also.

When I was working on my instrument I insisted my instructor make the flights XC because I knew I would need it and I wanted the experience. Doing the same ILS and VOR approach 40 times then taking a check ride on that same ILS is doing nobody any good.

Good idea. I'm sure career oriented students would be 100% behind this idea.

For the other students, you could actually discuss this situation with them and see if they would be willing to go a few extra tenths. This is not entirely unreasonable since a career-oriented CFI's PRIMARY compensation is the flight experience needed to move on. If you're freelance you may more flexibility, including the option of discounting some of the instructor time involved.

But ethically it's a no-go to make significant changes to student training profiles, without the student's knowledge, just because the ATP reg changed. That's not their fault or their problem.

Plan B: Go do 135 night freight at 1200 hours.

It's not that uncommon. I was a CFI for 3 years from 2008-2011 because all of the airlines furloughed. Even CFI jobs were really hard to get. Next time the airlines furlough the same thing will happen to anyone who is a new CFI at that time.

We are class C airspace with another class C airspace 26 miles away... Plus 3 D airspaces within the radius of 15 miles.... And if that is not enough two uncontrolled airports in the vicinity as well! In total over 40 possible approaches. In our school we backseat so taking two students at a time is out of the question. Hopefully by the time I have 3000 TT I will get my 500 XC time as well ;)

Used to be everybody knew they were going to have to do that.


This used to be step 2, after you worked as a CFI.

Step 3 was a regional, usually with 3000+ hours and turbine time.

The 1500 hour rule really just puts the system back to where it used to be, and prevents high-demand bubbles from causing airlines to lower their standards below what is reasonable for airline pilots.

If the system goes back to the way it was, I sure hope pay goes back to the way it was. Cause flight instructing used to pay a lot better than it did now .. well, it was about the same, but adjusted for inflation, it was a lot more money.