The legislation that Congress passed simply says that a SIC for a part 121 carrier must hold an ATP certificate. This WILL go into effect next summer. The FAA controls the requirements to hold an ATP certificate, so they are proposing some changes to the requirements. They have proposed to have a "restricted" ATP certificate with lower minimums for those who hold an aviation degree or come from the military. This is the big "if" right now.

This is the FAA NPRM:

Federal Register, Volume 77 Issue 40 (Wednesday, February 29, 2012)

Wait. Do you mean the requirement for an ATP, or the various minimum-reductions for military and aviation colleges?

I believe the ATP requirement is 2013, no matter what.

That is the most fired up I have every seen you! :D

The ATP requirement is hard deadline (federal law, thank congress for that).

The other details are all left up to the FAA so they can stall as long as they want to.

Fixed that for you!

IE, a Commercial is the new ATP. Bwahaha.

This is really easy to do in the two-seat trainers that I instruct in.

I guess if I "actually try" I would have figured out how to dismember the second student, shove them in the baggage compartment, and then put them back together to fly us home on the return leg.

I am also finding this 50nm XC the hardest minimum to meet. I try to drag the students 50 miles away when I can, but our scheduling and course syllabus is very strict and does not allow for much in the way of combining lessons and whatnot :(. Also, our FSDO has recently come down on our CFI's for doing cross country flights on lessons that are specified as locals. According to our POI we are in violation of the FAA approved TCO when doing that :rolleyes:

Well that just sucks. Nothing like having the FAA stand in your way on something that benign.

That seems very odd. Does the school that wants to be able to fly without the ELT operational (see 91.207)?

Does it really say this in your TCO?

The possible issue with XCs is that this very easily gets out of control with instructors that are in it for themselves and not really giving value to the student. Combining stuff and making it an XC is fine, but as an example, if you really stink at a maneuver and have to learn it, it's better to talk about it on the ground and then try another day, rather than think that later on it might be better. On the other hand, with two students, it might be a great way to get some XC time and be just as efficient in terms of maneuvers and such. With some instructors, this is not the case and I've seen students getting the short end of the stick. They didn't know any better at the time unfortunately. Maybe this is another reason why they "don't want to go there", but again, it just seems very odd.

There wasn't a CFI recently "racking up XC" time on every flight was there?

If this is truly from the FAA, why not call up the POI and ask for some clarification?

Going to different airports semi-frequently is one of the best things you can do for experience (of a student).