So lets say this scenario you're currently a first officer at a 121 regional. You take off and depart, after flying 60 miles straight line distance you discover some mechanical issues and thus decide to turn around and fly back to airport. Do you count this as cross country time?

 

The only reason I could see someone asking this is if they held a restricted ATP and were trying to log XC time to get it unrestricted, in which case, this applies:

Otherwise, if you already have an unrestricted ATP, you can log it as whatever you like, upside down flying squirrel time or "shiny jet" time, because the regulatory aspect of logging time applies for meeting currency and certificate requirements.

 

I don't log RTF's as XC, but that's just so that some some anal clown at an interview doesn't ask me to prove that I went 50 NM before turning around.

Logging XC on a RTF (even legit) might cause an interviewer to suspect that you just let "autofill" populate your logbook rather than thinking about what goes in there.

Yes, I've heard of "press to test" stuff like that happening at interviews

 

I don't log cross country time at all. However, if you are logging time toward the ATP, a cross country is a flight which reaches a point more than 50 nm from the point of departure, and doesn't require a landing at a point other than the point of departure.

If you're got your ATP, nobody cares whether your flight time is cross country.

I've flown half way around the world and not logged it as cross country. What would be the point, and why would anyone care?

If an interviewer is going to try to determine if you've logged cross country improperly on a 60 mile flight that returns to the point of origin, then 1) the interviewer is an idiot, and 2) you really should find somewhere better to work. After all, honestly, who gives a stuff? Yes, legally it's cross country, for the purposes of an ATP. If you're logging cross country for any other reason, the definition changes, and generally requires a landing at a point other than the point of departure. In this partcular case, it really doesn't matter. If your'e working as an airline pilot, you should have your ATP, and logging cross country time becomes fairly pointless.

 

Just put a NAVAID or waypoint close to the 60 nm mark and that's good enough for ATP XC. FOs only need a restricted ATP which is 200 hrs cross country vs 500 for a standard ATP.

 

I'm unfamiliar with the regulatory requirement for "good enough," or the use of a navaid in logging time or qualifying it. What's the reference?

 

It's an FAA recognized position with a specific Lat/Lon that he flew over. You already know the FAA doesn't regulate exact logbook format. There's no standard way to set up your logbook. It just has to be "acceptable to the administrator."

 

Which has nothing to do with a way point or navaid.

 

It's not unusual for a Mil guy to show up with thousands of hours of XC all as out and backs. I don't think anyone would bat an eye.

 

Military pilots are given their own definition for cross country time under the regulation: 14 CFR 61.1(b), as well as their own certification qualification requirements (71.73).