I understand that Part 135 XC includes any time used to land at an airport other than your airport of departure. A few specific questions about this because I'm totaling up my times for a 135 application and want to do this right:

1) If I fly KABC-KDEF-KABC, do I only log the time from KABC-KDEF as XC time because the second leg is technically returning to my original point of departure?

2) If I fly KABC-KDEF and then do a bunch of tough and gos at KDEF, so I still log all the time at KDEF as cross country even though I'm repeatedly landing at another airport?

Thanks for clarifying these issues

It's point-to-point flight time where the second point is not the first point. There are no distance requirements.

Ex 1. A to B distance 49 miles = .7 hours
Ex 2. Lengthy pattern work at A including trip to practice area 10 miles away = no credit
Ex 3. B to C distance 5 miles = .3 hours
Ex 4. A to A with no landings any other airports, distance 724 miles = no credit
------------------------------------------
total Part 135 x-cty time: 1 hr

This is why CFIs always try and get at least one landing in at a second airport whenever they teach students. By doing this they get a massive amount of free Part 135 cross-country time even if the second airport is a mile away.

Thank you for your response. However, can you please re-read and answer my specific scenarios? By your definition as the "second point not being the first point," that seems to contradict the traditional "departure airport" scenario where the airport you are originally leaving is the only one that counts as the departure airport.

Simplified, if I take off, land at another airport once, and then come back to the airport I took off from, and the whole flight is 1 hour, do I only count the .5 to get to the second airport as 135 XC or the entire 1 hour as 135 XC?

Secondly, if I take off and fly .5 to another airport, do .5 in that pattern, and then fly .5 back, what portion(s) of that flight are loggable as 135 XC?

Thanks!

You actually have two flights here: A to B, then another B to A. Count them accordingly (.5 plus .5).

The outbound and the return legs count, but the .5 hour worth of touch and goes does not because they are not point-to-point legs where the second point differs from the first. You can't pick and choose which landings you count to cheat the rule.

An interesting contrast would be departing A, go to the practice area and spend 3.9 hours doing air work out there. Get all that done (whew), do a quick touch and go at point B then head back to A and grab a beer. Now it all counts. This is an absurd example, but it illustrates the rule. CFIs do it all the time and I do not approve or disapprove, just telling you about the practice.

Gotcha, thanks

It's pretty loosely monitored the last I knew. As long as you aren't a jumper-dumper or banner-tow, you will most likely have 700+ airport-airport XC hours to qualifiy by the time you hit the 1200hrs needed to be IFR PIC under 135

I know this thread has been deceased for a while, but I've been having trouble getting a solid answer about whether or not the CFI would be able to count the flight as 135 XC if the student did the landing.
This worries me because I rarely log landings for myself and I give them all to my students, often even if I did perform the landing. Not sure how/why this habit got started, probably because I don't keep track of my own landings. When I fill out my logbook every payday, I just throw a landing in once in a while to satisfy the 90-day currency requirement. I know many instructors who also do that.
Have I been robbing myself of 135 XC time? Should I go back through my logbook and try my best to fix it by guessing? (There are plenty of empty spaces in the landings row for me to do that; is that shady?) It seems that a 135 employer would need to see a landing there to count it since it's defined that way. Did I just answer my own question? New to APC so I apologize if this has been covered. Help!

Noy or another expert on aviation law can improve this answer, but the standard practice is for the pilot giving instruction to log the landings even if they do not manipulate the controls. There is a distinction between manipulating controls and acting as PIC for the flight. They are PIC for the flight as the instructor, even if they do not manipulate the controls. For the FAR 90 day currency requirement, manipulating controls must take place.

I never logged the landing unless I actually performed all of it. Helpful nudges don't count. An future employer might wonder why a CFI logged ten LDGs on an instructional flight.

The good news is that you don't need the LDG to log XC for the ATP.

Your CFI time is either 61/141 and 91, not 135. Not an expert, but usually, you can only log time in accordance with the part you are operating under. So unless you are a 135 instructor then I would say that you none of your time and be counted as 135 XC.