100 mile cross country night time requirement quandry

Jeff Szlauko

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ChopperJeff
I’ve read the night flight requirement pertaining to having a dual cross country night flight of at least 100 miles, and I got the impression that this 100 mile cross country night flight involves taking off from an airport, and having the destination airport be at least 100 miles away. However, in texting my CFI and asking about this, he says we can fly to an airport, say, 51 miles away, then return, and that satisfies the requirement of the 100 mile cross country night flight. Is he right?
 
You can find your answer in 14cfr6.109

100 miles total distance
 
Private:
(i) One cross-country flight of over 100 nautical miles total distance; and

Commercial:
(iii) One 2-hour cross country flight in a single engine airplane in daytime conditions that consists of a total straight-line distance of more than 100 nautical miles from the original point of departure;

(iv) One 2-hour cross country flight in a single engine airplane in nighttime conditions that consists of a total straight-line distance of more than 100 nautical miles from the original point of departure; and
 
Your CFI is correct, you must fly at least 50+ miles from your departure airport, then a total of at least 100 miles. Don’t ask me how I know......
If anyone doubts that read the chief counsels opinion on what constitutes a “cross country”..
 
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  1. To meet the requirements (except rotorcraft and powered parachute category rating) for a private certificate, a commercial certificate, instrument rating, or for the purposes of exercising recreational pilot privileges (except in a rotorcraft) under 61.101(c), cross-country time requires a point of landing that is more than 50 nm straight-line distance from the original point of departure. 14 CFR 61.1(b)(3)(ii)
 
OK, thanks everyone! I knew that any flight from one airport to another that is at least 50 miles away constitutes a cross country flight, but when I saw that 100 mile requirement, it was easy to think that the airport must be at least 100 miles away, as opposed to total distance. What partially lead to my confusion was that my first CFI was going to have us fly our 100 mile night cross country, from Livermore Airport to Harris Ranch airport, which is 118 miles. Thus, I got the impression that this flight had to be 100 miles, one way. Glad you guys cleared it up for me!
 
Don't forget the time requirement.

3 hours of night flight training in a single engine airplane, that includes at least:
a) 1 cross country flight of over 100 nm total distance; and
b) 10 T/O’s and 10 landings to a full stop with each involving a flight in the traffic pattern at an airport.

My night xc destination satisfied the requirement to be >50nm away, but I chose to fly a somewhat longer route in order to get a little more time on the clock and also to avoid overflying some nasty terrain at night. Had I actually flown the direct route, my time for the xc and the TOs / Landings might have been short about 15 or twenty minutes.

Just something to keep in mind.
 
Don't forget the time requirement.

3 hours of night flight training in a single engine airplane, that includes at least:
a) 1 cross country flight of over 100 nm total distance; and
b) 10 T/O’s and 10 landings to a full stop with each involving a flight in the traffic pattern at an airport.

My night xc destination satisfied the requirement to be >50nm away, but I chose to fly a somewhat longer route in order to get a little more time on the clock and also to avoid overflying some nasty terrain at night. Had I actually flown the direct route, my time for the xc and the TOs / Landings might have been short about 15 or twenty minutes.

Just something to keep in mind.
I take it a night time straight in approach at a controlled field does not meet the 'involving the traffic pattern?

Oh, and there is no full stop requirement for the (10) T/O's.
 
I'm, still trying to figure out if we are talking about the private or commercial requirement.
I take it a night time straight in approach at a controlled field does not meet the 'involving the traffic pattern?
Why not? I think all the rule is really intended to preclude is landing, say three times, on the same runway on the same approach. When the Tower says "report 3 miles straight in," that is the traffic pattern.
 
It had to be a xc, so you need a point over 51nm. Then there is a requirement that it totals 100nm.

There is no requirement to return to the original point of departure, but a lot of people do that.
 
...I knew that any flight from one airport to another that is at least 50 miles away constitutes a cross country flight...

Just wanted to clarify that technically speaking, the FAA considers any flight to a destination other than your origin to be "cross-country." Practically speaking however, most of us follow the 50NM rule for logging because it is only the time in which your destination is greater than 50NM straight-line distance from your origin that counts towards cross-country experience time for most certificates. I've never heard anyone fail a checkride because they got this wrong but I have heard a few people (myself included) who's DPE's who use this as some sort of gotcha on the oral; its an important distinction for later in your flying career if you plan to go the part 135 route but it seems misplaced during a PPL.

I'd also note that the 2009 Van Zanen interpretation by the FAA allows you to "reposition" your aircraft. There's been some debate about the validity of flying 25 miles south of your origin before flying 50 miles north to another airport before finally returning the 25 miles south to the origin airport and logging all or part of the flight as cross country time because you had a leg of 50NM without ever having traveled beyond 25NM from your place of origin. In this scenario, I refer you to the 2009 Keller interpretation in which the FAA has explicitly ruled a flight from A-to-B-to-C-to-A is not "cross-country" for the purposes of the long cross-country and cross-country experience time for the purposes of various licenses (PPL/IRA/CAX) on the basis of the origin airport being 25NM from both of the intermediates but goes on to state that if you flew a "repositioning" flight from A-to-B, logged it and then flew B-to-C-to-A as a separate flight, you could log the time from B-to-C-to-A as cross country time.

Still it's a valid criticism in my opinion so I try to avoid such flights I've only done such a flight twice: the first I changed to a different aircraft at the second airport clearly constituting a new flight (I also did not return to my original airport in the new aircraft, instead returning to my repositioning airport where I got back in the original plane and flew back home) and the second was after a 4 hour shutdown during which I left the airport and had a change in conditions from Day VFR to Night VFR.

I've also used repositioning flights to fly to an airport 6.5NM away from my home airport in order to log a flight to another airport that was 48.9NM and 51.9NM from my home and re-positioned airports respectively as XC. I find that one more "acceptable" since its a bit more of a fungible distance. The odds of having such close airports seem statistically low though and I've only done this flight twice as well.

I dont recommend using the Van Zanen or Keller interpretations for the purposes of the 5/50/50 hours required for PPL/IRA/CAX or any of the long cross-countries for Commercial. It can be a sticking point with DPE's, especially those unfamiliar with the interpretation and while you can always present them with the interpretations, I dont know that you want to force their hand on anything (could make for a more difficult checkride)...

I'd also caution to make sure your long XC's, particularly for Commercial, are over the required straight-line and total distances as I heard a story of someone who had to redo their long 250nm cross country because the DPE knew the airports involved and knew they were only ~249.8NM apart; dont know if its true, seems kind of like one of those types of stories CFI's tell their students to make sure they're not trying to cut that corner with an airport in that is a distance that could be considered "fungible" and ensure they are definitely over the 250NM mark. I targeted 102% of whatever requirement I was trying to meet and had an absolute minimum of 101% (so 51NM and 50.5NM for a XC) just to ensure I was to a less "fungible" number...

Of course once you have your 5/50/50 hours and the various long distance XC's for PPL/IRA/CAX, you enter into a whole new realm of Cross Country hours... With ATP certificates requiring only that you fly 50NM from your origin (no landing required) for a total of 200 hours and Part 135 operations using the FAA's definition of a cross country as any flight to an airport other than your place of origin/takeoff no matter how far which requires 100 hours XC for VFR operations and 500 hours XC for IFR operations.

Personally, I dont know if I'll go as far as ATP or Part 135 (probably not) but I plan at least for the ATP to have landings at airports over 50NM away as opposed to relying on a "route of flight" which can be disputed (my long instrument cross-country was done to an airport 150NM away for similar reasons) and probably 75% of my flights involve flight to another airport so about 75% of my flight time counts as XC for Part 135...
 
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I was shot down on my first PPL check ride because my night cross country was a couple miles short of the 50nm distance from point of origin, I had well over the 100nm total.
The DPE produced a letter from the chief counsel and had me read it. My CFI usually trained out of an airport that was a few miles from mine and that was the route he usually used, unfortunately the distance change was missed by both of us.
The DPE was nice enough to not charge me anything and we rescheduled so I could fly my night xc again.

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I was shot down on my first PPL check ride because my night cross country was a couple miles short of the 50nm distance from point of origin, I had well over the 100nm total.

So I'm guessing that you had more than one stop? The night XC doesn't require landings at 3 locations like the day XC solo. You must have had 3 legs of 40nm each or something similar.
 
Yes, I landed at two different airport besides the place of origin on my night cross country. The second landing angled back closer to home.
I did a lot of night flying (I liked it) and was signed off for night solo flight. My home airport is a nice black hole with no vasi/papi and crappy lighting, never gave me too much trouble.
 
Yes, I landed at two different airport besides the place of origin on my night cross country. The second landing angled back closer to home.
I've heard of other situations in which a cross country was not long enough. Always seemed like one of those things the student and the instructor should have both caught.
 
I don't get why students and instructors are so bent on doing the absolute minimums for cross countries. Oh, here's an airport 50.000001 away. That's the one we'll do! A student comes to me with something like that, and I'm like "nope, try again, I want full assery not half assery!"
 
I've heard of other situations in which a cross country was not long enough. Always seemed like one of those things the student and the instructor should have both caught.

That would be correct:(

My redo was about 180nm to a busy class C that had one of it's two runways closed. It was a great lesson and nerve racking being sequenced between a Boeing and Airbus. I learned a new term that night, "maintain maximum forward speed" with the nose down on long final we flew 170kts. Tower was appreciative, ground was not when I asked to taxi back for take off.:)
 
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I don't get why students and instructors are so bent on doing the absolute minimums for cross countries. Oh, here's an airport 50.000001 away. That's the one we'll do! A student comes to me with something like that, and I'm like "nope, try again, I want full assery not half assery!"

Agree 100%. Why people want to do bare minimum when this is training. I have students Xc around 75 miles each way and the long xc around 200 to 250. I want my students to be able to handle a lot more possible situations when they get the license than students that have done the bare minimum.
 
Agree 100%. Why people want to do bare minimum when this is training. I have students Xc around 75 miles each way and the long xc around 200 to 250. I want my students to be able to handle a lot more possible situations when they get the license than students that have done the bare minimum.
So, if a student is ready for their PP ride at 40 hours, do you not sign them off because it’s the minimum?
 
So, if a student is ready for their PP ride at 40 hours, do you not sign them off because it’s the minimum?
It would be quite the rare student in today's world that is ready at 40 hours.
 
My previous student was. Was actually looking for filler time to get him to 40 hours.
 
My previous student was. Was actually looking for filler time to get him to 40 hours.
Learned stick and rudder quickly, understood rules and regulations mostly on his own?
 
Learned stick and rudder quickly, understood rules and regulations mostly on his own?

Yeah, already had a background in engines, ATV's, motorcycles, boats, snowmobiles, etc...

And it was in a CS prop plane too.
 
Did you sign him off so he could do some extra cross countries to visit friends????

He never asked, but I would have if he could make it there and back in the same day.
 
So, if a student is ready for their PP ride at 40 hours, do you not sign them off because it’s the minimum?

If they are ready to my standards and level of training at 40 hours. I will happily sign them off.
 
I don't get why students and instructors are so bent on doing the absolute minimums for cross countries. Oh, here's an airport 50.000001 away. That's the one we'll do! A student comes to me with something like that, and I'm like "nope, try again, I want full assery not half assery!"

I wouldn't let a student get away with 50.0001 NM away either more so because its in that "fungible" distance and it will ultimately depend on how accurately you are able to measure the distance to between the airports (and just what point on the sectional/airport you use to measure the distance).

That being said, the urge for shorter cross countries is usually motivated by time, money and need.
Time: The average training aircraft True's at somewhere between 90-110 TAS... At that speed, its barely better than a car, especially since most early cross countries have a tendency to follow major highways... Sure I've had favorable windshear conditions that let me fly faster in both directions but I've also had unfavorable winds where the cars on the ground were moving faster than I was. Longer cross countries there for take more time and time is a valuable commodity to most people.

Money: Intricately tied to time is the money factor. Cost played a big factor in my cross country's early in my flight training... Cost of my time, cost of the airplane and the cost overall of obtaining my license. A longer cross country takes more flight time to complete in a trainer. That's an added cost which then gets compounded into the cost of the license; doubly so if you have to fly it with an instructor (such as any of the 2 XC's requiring an instructor or the long XC which permits an instructor, all 3 for commercial or just an initial cross country).

Need: When I first got my PPL in San Antonio, TX, there just wasn't anywhere I was interested in going or needed to go to in a reasonable range. Driving to Austin was faster than driving to the airport, preflighting and flying. Houston and Dallas wouldn't be bad options but as a student pilot, it'd pretty much have to be an out and back and even as a PPL, there just wasn't anything of interest in either city to me. Going further out pretty much assures the need to stay overnight which becomes a cost issue again with overnight minimums on the plane, tie down costs and hotels. When I moved to California, it was a little different as suddenly flying beat traffic. Now back in the North East, I'm back to not really wanting to go to any of the mid-range airports but not having a plane fast enough or cheap enough in terms of minimum overnight hours to fly to a longer range location; plus its not only difficult to do but I always feel bad taking the plane for the entire day and not letting others get their flights in. (I know I need my own plane but most students aren't even considering their own plane let alone have one so need is a big consideration).

Combining need with the time and money aspect and well you have a recipe for short XC's born out of the desire to have the time and money count towards something... Most of my early XC's I did were short 51-60NM XC's out of a need to get "value" out of the time and money spent.

Which value in this case was generally born out of the need to meet a requirement for a license. All of which makes its easy to see why a minimum requirement XC is generally preferable to an "exceeds" requirement XC when flying for requirement... especially since the PPL only requires 5 hours of solo XC time and 3 hours of Dual XC time... Times which are generally met pretty easily just by doing the initial day XC and the night XC's for the dual and the 150NM XC + a second XC for the solo.

Maybe a solution is to extend the number of solo XC hours required? I know I didn't particularly like having to go through the process of getting my XC plan validated by a CFI when I did my PPL so if I needed more than 5 hours, I probably would have done longer XC's than I did in order to minimize the number of flights I did but I imagine there will be some people who have no problem flying 5 or 6 XC's to get the time required and they may even fly the same XC more than once which has a diminishing return on experience.

I also know that a lot of instructors get leery of releasing their students for longer XC's. Weather conditions can change, planes can break down further away and the student can have an accident/incident or violate an FAR which goes against the instructor. One of the issues with holding instructors responsible/accountable for their student's actions; tis better to get the XC over with quickly and in the minimum time/distance required so they can get their checkride down and become responsible/accountable for themselves than risk them doing something that goes against your certificate.

Agree 100%. Why people want to do bare minimum when this is training. I have students Xc around 75 miles each way and the long xc around 200 to 250. I want my students to be able to handle a lot more possible situations when they get the license than students that have done the bare minimum.

Distance isn't really a big deal honestly. My favorite and most frequently logged destination was a cross country of 60 NM. Though it was my favorite for other reasons, I found not only was I intimately familiar with the route but it required practically zero skill in navigation to get there and getting back required only a little more skill... Catalina Airport (AVX) on Catalina island lies 59.5NM from Carlsbad airport (CRQ) in California. You take off from Carlsbad, a class D airport who's most frequently used runway faces west, fly runway heading to the coast which is just to the west of the airport and just on the edge of the class D airspace and usually by then on a day with the generally available conditions and even the minimum conditions required to complete the flight, you'd be at an altitude to high enough to spot the island... Point the nose and go. Once to the island, the airport is practically smack dab in the center of it and even if you didn't know that, the island is only 7 NM wide and 17NM long.

Coming back from there wasn't that much more difficult... Day or night. The airport is at 1600 ft and by the time you made the 180 to go east and reached the town of Avalon, you had enough altitude to see the mainland which was again point and go... The hardest part with the return was knowing a heading that would get you reasonably close to CRQ and keeping out of the Bravo's of LAX and SAN to the North and South or the Restricted area over Camp Pendleton... but even that was pretty simple since Camp Pendleton is basically a giant no-man's land along the coast between Oceanside/Carlsbad and Irving/Anheim/Los Angeles. Shoot for where "civilization" begins again on the south side of Pendleton and you'd be 10NM from the airport.

Of course that was only 60NM but then I can look at my 261NM leg of my long cross country for commercial and still question just how much "skill" I demonstrated on that leg... I left 3O8 Harris Ranch in the Central California Valley headed south. To the east and west were mountains leading me to the southern tip of the valley so it was a pretty easy climb and heading even without having a VOR station to tune to or a mountain to target. Just a point and in the right general direction and let the mountains do the rest. I climbed to 11,000 ft to get over the mountains and into the LA Basin where things became even easier... At 11,000 ft, its remarkably easy to see the coast even 20NM inland but even without the coast which I was able to follow all the way back to San Diego, I also had SoCal talking in my ear more or less giving me directions to keep out of the way of the traffic in the Bravo over LAX and SAN. Technically of course it was all pilotage but not in the way that I did pilotage flying even 50NM in Texas where your landmarks/points and headings/tracks actually mattered because everything looked the same.

Of course the hardest part of my long cross country and the hardest cross country I've done to date was the 54.8NM (direct, I didn't go direct for performance reasons) between Lone Pine (O26) and Eckert (1Q1), neither of which I actually landed at but easily could have been landing points as landmarks along a longer cross country (from L06 to 3O8). Over the Sierra Nevada's, with hardly any good landmarks and certainly no roads, clearways or other man-made objects to follow, too far to be heard by Joshua Approach and too low at 10,500 ft to pickup Oakland Center picking my way through mountains at mostly 9-10,000 ft but some extending up to nearly 13,000 feet partially or fully obscured in places by a large orographic cloud that extended up to 13,000ft or more and required knowledge of where to find some additional lift and every ounce of performance out of the Grumman Tiger I was in to reach and exceed its service ceiling of 13,800 ft while circling in the mountains for nearly 30 minutes to barely (and maybe even not completely, though considering the terrain I thankfully didnt have to worry about an IFR plane popping out of the clouds from below) fly over the clouds legally. By the time I got up to enough altitude to reach Oakland Center, they were trying to find a plane in the area that could deviate to try and relay the signal. All in a plane without GPS and a poorly functioning VOR.

So yeah... 260 NM vs 54 NM... you can get a lot of experience in 50 NM or very little experience in 260 NM (especially if you have a moving map GPS plane).
 
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Do the ten stop n gos at a towered airport, will pay dividends in future rating requirements.
 
Don't forget the time requirement.

3 hours of night flight training in a single engine airplane, that includes at least:
a) 1 cross country flight of over 100 nm total distance; and
b) 10 T/O’s and 10 landings to a full stop with each involving a flight in the traffic pattern at an airport.

My night xc destination satisfied the requirement to be >50nm away, but I chose to fly a somewhat longer route in order to get a little more time on the clock and also to avoid overflying some nasty terrain at night. Had I actually flown the direct route, my time for the xc and the TOs / Landings might have been short about 15 or twenty minutes.

Just something to keep in mind.

You listed the night landings under training but they are actually supposed to be Solo. See 61.129.
 
You listed the night landings under training but they are actually supposed to be Solo. See 61.129.
That’s because he was answering the OP who was asking about Private Pilot requirements 61.109 and you are looking at the commercial requirements.
 
61.109 is what's applicable to the PPL. 61.109a(2) explicitly call for "night training in a single engine airplane that includes" and 61.109a(2)ii states "10 takeoffs and 10 landings to a full stop (with each landing involving a flight in the traffic pattern) at an airport."

So Half Fast is correct in listing 10 landings for PPL (plus he was also pointing out the time requirement more so than the landing requirement).

Do the ten stop n gos at a towered airport, will pay dividends in future rating requirements.

Texas Clouds however is less correct. Since 61.109a(2)ii requires them to be "to a full stop," doing touch-n-go's at a towered airport will not fulfill the requirement under 61.109 and while 61.129a(4)ii doesn't require they be "to a full stop" it does require them to be "solo" so doing them with an instructor at an airport with a tower does not pay dividends in later training... Nor can the instructor get out and they be done solo since 61.109a(2) requires it be dual time so it cant be solo. So doing them at a controlled or uncontrolled field, no dividends will be paid later.

Bottom line, the minimum number of night landings required to complete a commercial rating is 20. 10 to a full stop in training as a student at a manned or unmanned field going for PPL and 10 more "options" as a private pilot at a tower controlled field for commercial requirements
 
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He didn't say touch-n-go's, he said: stop-n-go's

Ok... Point taken. Still doesn't help. 61.109 say they're to a full-stop which is defined as a landing which ends in a complete stop and exit from the runway. So they need to be a taxi-back not stop-n-go.

As to the "not solo" part. He's not rated for the operation so any time the instructor is in the plane, he should be logging dual time and only dual time; he's only able to log solo/PIC for the time in which he is in fact the sole occupant of the aircraft.

The general consensus on "simulated solo" portion of the 61.129a(4) regulations is intended not as a means to get around being appropriately rated and therefore able to log PIC but rather its intended to meet insurance requirements for low-time pilots (such as a SEL transitioning to MEL and trying to obtain their initial CxEL as a CMEL) to skirt the insurance minimums. A lot of insurance policies also seem to get leery of long distances as I am currently working with a flight school that bars XC flights of over 200 NM without special authorization/approval from the head instructor and I worked with a club in California that while not intentionally baring XC of over 100NM without a checkout, it is practically what they did as you couldn't go to airports more than 35 miles East or 100 miles North without a mountain checkout, you couldn't go more than 35 miles South as that put you into Mexico which was prohibited and the only airport west of the airport was an island 60 miles off the coast which had it's own checkout due to flight over open water, the condition of their runway and the optical illusion created by the runway on top of a cliff. The mountain checkout and island checkout were both required by the insurance.
 
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