61.129 - Commercial "long XC" at night?

RussR

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Please double-check me on this. I am training a pilot for his initial Commercial certificate in a multi-engine airplane. We are exercising the provisions of "PDPIC", mute CFI, ballast CFI, whatever you want to call it, due to typical insurance reasons.

A commercial applicant is required to have 5 hours of solo/PDPIC at night (with 10 landings at a controlled field), the long solo/PDPIC XC, and 10 hours total solo/PDPIC. Any reason we couldn't do the long XC at night, make it take 5 hours and get in the controlled field landings on the same trip? (Other than being up all night?) I can't see why not. That would leave him with 5 hours during the day of basically PDPIC "checkride maneuver practice". That sounds like a more efficient use of time to me.
 
Nothing wrong with what you propose. The student still needs ten hours overall, but the subcategories can overlap if it meets the requirements of each one of them.
 
Can you also do the dual night XC on the same trip? Act as CFI for 250 nm or 2 hours, whichever comes last. After landing, transition to ballast while the student does 10 takeoffs and full stop landings are the towered airport, then remain silent as the student flies for the remainder of the 5 hours not used during the pattern work to complete a 300nm, 3-landing cross-country on the way home. (The first leg being 250nm away from home checks that box on the PDPIC return trip.)
 
Can you also do the dual night XC on the same trip? Act as CFI for 250 nm or 2 hours, whichever comes last. After landing, transition to ballast while the student does 10 takeoffs and full stop landings are the towered airport, then remain silent as the student flies for the remainder of the 5 hours not used during the pattern work to complete a 300nm, 3-landing cross-country on the way home. (The first leg being 250nm away from home checks that box on the PDPIC return trip.)

So the line in the logbook would say solo and dual received. Man that's a red flag just waiting to spring up.
 
The FAA is pretty lenient about how you determine what a "flight" is, but I don't think they're going to allow you to insert instruction in the middle of a solo (or pretend-solo) flight or vice versa. You could fly out 350 miles as dual and count that as one flight receiving instruction, and then play quasi-solo on the way back, counting it as a second flight.
 
Can you also do the dual night XC on the same trip? Act as CFI for 250 nm or 2 hours, whichever comes last. After landing, transition to ballast while the student does 10 takeoffs and full stop landings are the towered airport, then remain silent as the student flies for the remainder of the 5 hours not used during the pattern work to complete a 300nm, 3-landing cross-country on the way home. (The first leg being 250nm away from home checks that box on the PDPIC return trip.)
It sounds a bit funky but no one says a qualifying cross country needs to be a round trip. I personally don't see a huge problem if each flight is separately logged, they don't overlap, and they are written up in a way a clear distinction is made between the two.
 
Can you also do the dual night XC on the same trip? Act as CFI for 250 nm or 2 hours, whichever comes last. After landing, transition to ballast while the student does 10 takeoffs and full stop landings are the towered airport, then remain silent as the student flies for the remainder of the 5 hours not used during the pattern work to complete a 300nm, 3-landing cross-country on the way home. (The first leg being 250nm away from home checks that box on the PDPIC return trip.)

That is interesting and I see no reason it wouldn't work - except in my case, we've already done the 2-hour day and 2-hour night dual XCs. But I see no problem with your method.

So the line in the logbook would say solo and dual received. Man that's a red flag just waiting to spring up.

If I was doing this, it would be two entries in the logbook - the first line to the XC location as dual received, the second line with the controlled-field landings and return XC as PDPIC (and the PDPIC does not get logged as "solo", or even as "dual received". It's just "time".) https://www.faa.gov/about/office_or...s/2014/Kuhn - (2014) Legal Interpretation.pdf
 
The whole thing is a mess. Ironic that the insurance industry has caused training to be dumbed down. Not sure why the insurance companies couldn't carve out an exception for students doing FAA required solo work rather than the FAA carving out exceptions for them.
 
So the line in the logbook would say solo and dual received. Man that's a red flag just waiting to spring up.

The FAA is pretty lenient about how you determine what a "flight" is, but I don't think they're going to allow you to insert instruction in the middle of a solo (or pretend-solo) flight or vice versa. You could fly out 350 miles as dual and count that as one flight receiving instruction, and then play quasi-solo on the way back, counting it as a second flight.

@flyingron's response is what I had in mind. Nothing in the middle of the flight, but just two different log entries for two consecutive flights on the same date. Do the dual cross country outbound, do whatever it takes to make you feel comfortable starting a new line in the logbook (fuel up the plane, get supper, watch a movie, or just do a stop-and-go on the runway if that's enough for you), and then transition to ballast mode.

8/13/2020 - KOKC-KMCI - 2.0 hrs dual night instruction - signed by instructor
8/13/2020 - KMCI-KMHK-KTOP-KOKC - 3.0 hrs PDPIC night, 10 night takeoffs and landings at towered airports
 
Please double-check me on this. I am training a pilot for his initial Commercial certificate in a multi-engine airplane. We are exercising the provisions of "PDPIC", mute CFI, ballast CFI, whatever you want to call it, due to typical insurance reasons.

A commercial applicant is required to have 5 hours of solo/PDPIC at night (with 10 landings at a controlled field), the long solo/PDPIC XC, and 10 hours total solo/PDPIC. Any reason we couldn't do the long XC at night, make it take 5 hours and get in the controlled field landings on the same trip? (Other than being up all night?) I can't see why not. That would leave him with 5 hours during the day of basically PDPIC "checkride maneuver practice". That sounds like a more efficient use of time to me.
It's better to show a proposed flight, but here's a hypothetical for unknown airports.
ABC → DEF - 2 hours to somewhere.
DEF → GHI - repositioning flight to a towered field at least 300 nm from ABC;
GHI → ABC with appropriate stops.Maybe do some of the takeoffs and landings on the way out and maybe add another towered airport to include on the way back.​
Basically, you are logging three flights, only the last one of which is a pseudo-solo. I wonder though whether, if you start working it out with real airports, it's really that efficient. Doubling up seems more workable to the day and night dual cross countries. Fly out during the day; have dinner; fly back at night.
 
It's better to show a proposed flight, but here's a hypothetical for unknown airports.
ABC → DEF - 2 hours to somewhere.
DEF → GHI - repositioning flight to a towered field at least 300 nm from ABC;
GHI → ABC with appropriate stops.Maybe do some of the takeoffs and landings on the way out and maybe add another towered airport to include on the way back.​
Basically, you are logging three flights, only the last one of which is a pseudo-solo. I wonder though whether, if you start working it out with real airports, it's really that efficient. Doubling up seems more workable to the day and night dual cross countries. Fly out during the day; have dinner; fly back at night.

I think you may be conflating my original post with the modification proposed by @iamtheari . My original question did not involve the dual XC's, only the PDPIC/solo requirements (due to us already having completed the dual XC's, yes, by flying out to dinner and coming back at night, that is my preferred technique.)

A sample PDPIC long XC/night landings flight would be something like this: HSD - LXT - OKC - HSD: https://skyvector.com/?ll=36.83830609443949,-95.74694823696713&chart=301&zoom=7&fpl= KHSD KLXT KOKC KHSD

With 10 landings at OKC. (Note this may or may not be a great route, it's just a sample.)

This will easily take care of the 5 hours of PDPIC night and the night landings. Then the remainder of 10 hours of the PDPIC can be spent practicing stuff.
 
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Maybe the rules changed since I did it, but doesn't going straight for your commercial multi mean you don't have single engine commercial privileges? Two decades ago I was working on my multi and was coached to hold off on the check ride until after my (nearly concurrent) commercial check ride in a single engine plane. Then my multi ride was a commercial ride, skipping what would have been a private multi ride had I not paid attention.

Given that the road to big iron involves some low end jobs, and certainly does with this down turn, I don't know that having the least possible amount of hours/experience in your logbook is a good thing.
 
Maybe the rules changed since I did it, but doesn't going straight for your commercial multi mean you don't have single engine commercial privileges?

Correct. That's what the applicant wants. He will be Commercial Pilot - Airplane Multiengine Land, Private Pilot privileges - Airplane Single Engine Land.

He can always go back and add on the Commercial Single later, but for now this fits in with his career goals, and aircraft and instructor (my) availability.
 
Please double-check me on this. I am training a pilot for his initial Commercial certificate in a multi-engine airplane. We are exercising the provisions of "PDPIC", mute CFI, ballast CFI, whatever you want to call it, due to typical insurance reasons.

A commercial applicant is required to have 5 hours of solo/PDPIC at night (with 10 landings at a controlled field), the long solo/PDPIC XC, and 10 hours total solo/PDPIC. Any reason we couldn't do the long XC at night, make it take 5 hours and get in the controlled field landings on the same trip? (Other than being up all night?) I can't see why not. That would leave him with 5 hours during the day of basically PDPIC "checkride maneuver practice". That sounds like a more efficient use of time to me.

Makes sense. But there's probably something wrong with it. I dunno. Substitute FAR 61 for Drugs below

 
Maybe the rules changed since I did it, but doesn't going straight for your commercial multi mean you don't have single engine commercial privileges? Two decades ago I was working on my multi and was coached to hold off on the check ride until after my (nearly concurrent) commercial check ride in a single engine plane. Then my multi ride was a commercial ride, skipping what would have been a private multi ride had I not paid attention.

Given that the road to big iron involves some low end jobs, and certainly does with this down turn, I don't know that having the least possible amount of hours/experience in your logbook is a good thing.
I know big-iron pilots who have no single-engine privileges and haven't flown a single-engine aircraft since Air Force initial training.
 
The general consensus answer you have received is correct. I would emphasize that for clarity, any flights in which "solo" (or "PDPIC") time and "dual received" are both involved, such as leg one being PDPIC and leg 2 being dual received, should be logged separately and very specifically. This is scrutinized very carefully prior to initiating a practical test. Unfortunately I have had to disqualify applicants for logging "dual received" with an instructor signature on a flight which was intended to be "PDPIC." For the most part, however, instructors seem to be aware of how to correctly direct their students to log this sort of flight time - usually there's no issue.
 
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