cross-country time

[ZUM]

In terms of building cross country time for the instrument rating, does the solo XC time earned during PPL training count toward this time? And also, would it count if one were flying to an airport that is over 50nm away but stopping at an airport or two along the way that would result in a less than 50nm distance between any two airports along the route?

[pilot602]

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In terms of building cross country time for the instrument rating, does the solo XC time earned during PPL training count toward this time?

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Yes. Dual XC flights during your private training do not, however. Or at least that's the last understanding I had of hte matter.

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And also, would it count if one were flying to an airport that is over 50nm away but stopping at an airport or two along the way that would result in a less than 50nm distance between any two airports along the route?

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As long as you have one airport that is 50nm+ away from your point of origin it's a XC. Not much of a XC, but the FAA says it is.

[Alchemy]

Yes and Yes. Ask your CFII too though.

[cime_sp]

I seem to remember it being the first point of landing needing to be 50 nm away. If that's the case it would not count.

[Buzo]

All PIC x-country counts. As long as you make a landing at an airport 50nm away from the original point of departure it counts as X-C. You can stop every ten miles if you want to.

[Eagle]

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All PIC x-country counts. As long as you make a landing at an airport 50nm away from the original point of departure it counts as X-C. You can stop every ten miles if you want to.

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Xcntry is anytime you land somewhere different than you took off, even if it is a mile away.

Each rating has a specific requirement about which Xcntry they will accept. ( that is the 50 miles or 300 miles etc...)

[juskl]

And for a real brain teaser. For the Commercial, you need a 300 NM trip with at least 3 landings and the first being at least 250 straight line from departure point. Now if you go 250 one way, don't you think you would need to come back 250?????? Thus totaling 500. Is it me or was someone lacking sleep when they wrote this?

[Eagle]

[ QUOTE ]
And for a real brain teaser. For the Commercial, you need a 300 NM trip with at least 3 landings and the first being at least 250 straight line from departure point. Now if you go 250 one way, don't you think you would need to come back 250?????? Thus totaling 500. Is it me or was someone lacking sleep when they wrote this?

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not if you are sharing the ride with another pilot who wants to fly back for his 300 miles.

[juskl]

Can't. Per the regs it has to be solo. I was actually planning a nice trip to Carlsbad, Ca for a weekend. But was told the wife could not go (or anyone else for that matter) due to this technicality. Kind of dumb I think. Oh well. I will do what they tell me to do.

[Eagle]

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And for a real brain teaser.

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Yeah that is pretty stupid huh?

[Wolverine]

[ QUOTE ]
And for a real brain teaser. For the Commercial, you need a 300 NM trip with at least 3 landings and the first being at least 250 straight line from departure point. Now if you go 250 one way, don't you think you would need to come back 250?????? Thus totaling 500. Is it me or was someone lacking sleep when they wrote this?

[/ QUOTE ]

It could be that they are allowing pilots to complete the requirement without completing the entire flight, just in case something happens. There's a number of reasons why someone couldn't make the return trip home right away: storms popping up on the route home, mechanical problems, fatique, etc.

And, with that little caveat, pilots can spend some time at the destination and get a little pleasure out of the trip, rather than just fueling up and flying back home.

[bluelake]

no one said you had to come back to your point of origin....

[DE727UPS]

Wow...

I agree the solo (PIC) cross country time counts towards the instrument rating.

I disagree that you can make a landing until you've reached at least 50nm from your point of departure....no landing in between.

The whole point of cross country time is to get experience navigating a "long" distance away from where you take off from....not landing at an airport every ten miles. I've always trained,and been trained,that you had to have a 50nm hop between points to consider it a cross country (pvt, comm, ifr). Anyone had the FAA or a DE not say anything about a cross country where you landed somewhere before a 50nm distance? Gawd, this stuff can get confusing....

[CRJwannabe]

Our DE would laugh in your face and send you packing if you told him that you landed on your way to the airport that was "more than 50nm away from the original point of departure". I agree with DE727UPS, the point of the cross country would have been missed if you thought it was O.K. to land everytime you felt like checking out a new runway. Go the true straight line distance, don't stop, and you will be a better pilot for it and you won't have to worry about a DE sending you out to RE-FLY the cross country under their stipulations.

[Alchemy]

Yeah, for my commercial single engine, my long cross country was as follows:

AUS-LZZ 44 NM
LZZ-MAF 216 NM
MAF-AUS 257 NM

Took the checkride last month and the DE didn't say anything about the first leg being less than 50 NM. I don't know if he looked close enough to realize, and I certainly wasn't going to ask him about it right there.

[DE727UPS]

"61.127(a)4(i) One cross-country flight of not less than 300 nautical miles total
distance, with landings at a minimum of three points, one of which is a
straight-line distance of at least 250 nautical miles from the original
departure point."

You were okay in that your total distance was over 300 and one leg was over 250. It's okay that you had a 44nm leg.

[DE727UPS]

Example 1: You takeoff from airport A and fly 20nm to airport B and land. You takeoff from airport B and fly 40nm to airport C and land. It's 55nm, straight line, from airport A to airport C. You leave the plane at airport C and drive home cause the FAR's are so stupid. This trip does not qualify as a X/C flight for the instrument rating, in my book.

Example 2: You fly the above trip outbound but on the way back fly direct from airport A to airport C, which is 55nm, and land. I'm not completely sure, but I think this whole trip, all three legs, count as a X/C flight for the IR because one of the legs was over 50nm. It's a grey area for me because I've never done it that way before but after reading the reg, it seems like it's okay.

Example 3: You fly from airport A to airport C and land, which is 55nm. Then, you turn around and fly back from airport C, to airport A, and land, which, magically, is still 55nm. This trip counts, for sure, as a X/C flight for the IR. This is the way I trained and the way I train. I dare say, this is what the FAA expects and was the meaning and intent of the rule. But...If there are CFI's out there that are doing things differently and have the DE's blessing, I'd love to hear about it.

[E_Dawg]

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Anyone had the FAA or a DE not say anything about a cross country where you landed somewhere before a 50nm distance?

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I have. Even now I probably don't have 50hrs of XC time if I didn't count flights where I stopped somewhere along the way.

I took the FAR word for word... fulfilled the requirements; and all the DE did was check under the PIC XC column for 50hrs.

And I personally think it's made me a better pilot. 50nm isn't all that long in the first place, but by stopping at a third airport on the way I gained the experience of talking to different towers, planning more arrivals, and having more fun!

[DE727UPS]

After spending hours researching the question of X-C time time tonight. I've come to this conclusion....

To count as a X-C flight (for the IR), one leg in a series of legs must have been at least 50nm. You can takeoff on a X-C and make several landings at airports less than 50nm apart but one of the legs must be 50nm for the whole thing to count as a X-C per the regs. A DE would have to look hard at your X-C flights to catch this but the CFI who signed you off should know better.

FlyguyEd...look at your logbook again. If you have logged X-C flights where you never had one leg of at least 50nm, and your DE never said anything, then I'd say you were lucky and forget about it. I'd also say you weren't qualified to take your IR checkride and that your CFII and DE missed it or misunderstood the regs. These things happen and I'm glad this thread popped up or I never would have thought to do the research.

[Alchemy]

I agree with you DE727UPS. I typically do not log a flight as cross country unless the straightline distance from the first takeoff to the first landing is 50 NM or greater. However, for some reason I overlooked the 44 NM leg of my commercial cross country and didn't notice there might be a discrepency until after I had completed the flight. Normally I would make sure every leg was at least 50 NM just from force of habit, although it is apparant that the definition of logable "cross country" varies depending on what rating you're working on. What criteria would potential employers consider loggable as cross country, if they even care about cross country time at all?

On my commercial flight, you say you would log the first 44NM as cross country if the time were being applied to an instrument rating, because at least one portion of the flight was greater than 50 NM straightline distance. Sounds about right to me.....

[E_Dawg]

Well so we can all be on the same page here, I've cut and pasted the relevant FAR:

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(3) Cross-country time means --

(i) Except as provided in paragraphs (b)(3) (ii), (iii), (iv), and (v) of this section, time acquired during a 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.

(ii) For the purpose of meeting the aeronautical experience requirements (except for a rotorcraft category rating), for a private pilot certificate, a commercial pilot certificate, or an instrument rating, or for the purpose of exercising recreational pilot privileges (except in a rotorcraft) under §61.101(c), time acquired during a flight--

(A) Conducted in an appropriate aircraft;

(B) That includes a point of landing that was 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 to navigate to the landing point.
-----

(i) A,B,C, and D apply to ALL flights that land anywhere other than your departure airport, regardless of distance.

However in section (ii) it says that if you are to count it towards a rating or certificate it must:
'include a point of landing that was at least a straight-line distance of more than 50 nautical miles from the original point of departure'

It says nothing of the leg distance, nor does it say you must fly directly to the 50nm airport. It simply says that you must include a point 50nm away as some stop in your journey.

Now,for what it's worth, all of my XC flights have had at least one leg of 50nm; however that is completely irrelevant becuase to log a flight as XC, all you have to do is include a point 50nm away from your original departure airport.

[pilot602]

[ QUOTE ]
Well so we can all be on the same page here, I've cut and pasted the relevant FAR:

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(3) Cross-country time means --

(i) Except as provided in paragraphs (b)(3) (ii), (iii), (iv), and (v) of this section, time acquired during a flight -- (snip)

[/ QUOTE ]

Yup. This pretty much nails it.

[CRJwannabe]

I agree that the regulation doesn't state that you should not stop on the way to this airport that is 50nm away, BUT, as I said before, our DE would not take lightly to your explanation if you logged it as XC if you stopped on the way. It seems cut and dry to us talking about it right now, but I would be very interested to hear what a DE would have to say about it. I will get back to you if I get a chance to talk to him specificaly about the issue. I think it comes down to interpretation of the regulation and while everyone's points make sense (and I agree in part), 10 DE's might have 10 different answers based on their experiences.

[mrivc211]

Here's a example that will hopefully answer your question.



What if you flew from LA to NY and made one stop that was 50 miles distance and the rest of the stops were mere 20 miles apart. Would that trip be considered a cross country? YES!
The the stops are irrelevant, all you simply have to have is one of the legs to be 50NM in length. Then the whole trip is considered cross country.

A group of us went buttt crack deep into this issue and all it did was confuse the helll out of us!

[stuckingfk]

[ QUOTE ]
What if you flew from LA to NY and made one stop that was 50 miles distance and the rest of the stops were mere 20 miles apart. Would that trip be considered a cross country? YES!The the stops are irrelevant, all you simply have to have is one of the legs to be 50NM in length. Then the whole trip is considered cross country.

[/ QUOTE ]

The way I read it as you wouldn't be able to log cross country until you did that 50 nm leg. Every thing after that would be logged cross country. So if you flew 400 miles without having a leg over 50 nm, you wouldn't log any CC time. If your next leg was over 50 nm, everything after that would be logged as cross country time including that first leg of over 50 nm.

So mrivc, your statement seems to be confusing. If you meant to say your first leg has to be 50 nm or more then you could log CC time the whole trip (and you are right), but your next sentence saying "all you simply have to have is one of the legs to be 50 nm in length," well it has to be your first leg, not just one of them.