Logging time question.

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wilburburns

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Wilburburns
I'm a new low time pilot just out having fun, and trying to get the most out of this expensive hobby. I have a goal to be able to fly for the Civil Air Patrol, but need to log a lot more experience and hours. Just one of the requirements is a decent amount of XC time, so that is why I have this question.

Monday, I took a flight with my wife, for no real purpose except to be up flying and take the opportunity for my wife to tag along (she does not really like flying). So, Anyway rather than just go fly around in circles in the practice area, I decided to take a XC flight to log those hours. I have an airport 51nm from my home airport, which makes this quite easy. However, when we arrived at said airport, my wife needed to relieve herself and we hopped out to find the airport closed for the holiday. OOPS.. This could be a problem. So, we hopped back in and instead of flying direct to my home airport, we made another stop at a close airport that was Open and allowed her to take that potty break.

So, now the question is, how can I log the time correctly.

Airport A - My home airport
B - 51nm from A - Yes XC time
C - 15nm from B and 40nm-ish from A, but was not a planned stop

My intended flight was A -> B -> A, but I ended up A -> B -> C -> A

Can I log the entire flight as XC, or should I only log the first leg as XC time.

Knowing all of this could be a mute point anyway, because I think I want to go back and get my IFR rating anyway and will likely give me plenty of XC time, but like to do things correct also.

Thanks,
Cliff
 
You can log the whole thing as xc.

By "airport closed" you mean the FBO building was locked, right? Not that there were Xs on the runway (or otherwise NOTAMd closed). Right?
 
Yes, The FBO Office was closed and locked up.

I may be a new pilot, but not that new.. :)

Of course, what I didn't say above is that Airport "C" had 90% of the taxiways closed for resurfacing, which made getting in and out of the FBO quite interesting. But that's a completely different story.

Cliff
 
Yes, by 61.1 a cross country flight is a flight that has a point of landing other than the point of departure. To count it for things like your instrument rating experience, one of those points has to be more than 50 miles from the point of departure. The FAA is quite gracious in allowing pilots to group "legs" into flights as you see fit.
You could log ABCA as one flight or you could log AB, BC, CA as all separate flights, or AB, BCA, etc...

So ABCA is indeed a countable cross country. The flight time for each leg adds together to make the total XC flight time.
AB is also an XC by this destination. So is BCA. BC and CA are not XC.

Note that the 50 miles doesn't need to be nonstop.

If you have airports W, X, Y, Z all 15 miles apart from another in a straight line. WXYZ would be a XC flight.
 
flyingron said:
Yes, by 61.1 a cross country flight is a flight that has a point of landing other than the point of departure. To count it for things like your instrument rating experience, one of those points has to be more than 50 miles from the point of departure. The FAA is quite gracious in allowing pilots to group "legs" into flights as you see fit.
You could log ABCA as one flight or you could log AB, BC, CA as all separate flights, or AB, BCA, etc...

So ABCA is indeed a countable cross country. The flight time for each leg adds together to make the total XC flight time.
AB is also an XC by this destination. So is BCA. BC and CA are not XC.

Note that the 50 miles doesn't need to be nonstop.

If you have airports W, X, Y, Z all 15 miles apart from another in a straight line. WXYZ would be a XC flight.
Click to expand...

Thanks for that explanation. I was under the impression that at least 1 leg of the flight had to be 50nm non-stop. Glad to know that is not the case.

Cliff
 
Not for the general 50 hours requirement for the instrument. The "long" solo xc on your private has to have at least one 50+ mile leg.
 
wilburburns said:
Thanks for that explanation. I was under the impression that at least 1 leg of the flight had to be 50nm non-stop. Glad to know that is not the case.

Cliff
Click to expand...

As long as your initial leg is >50nm it's an X/C. Long ways to go for "free" CAP proficiency flying tho. : )
 
ZLNpr75.jpg
 
You are correct about that. Right now its all about building time and gaining experience.

Cliff
 
Interestingly(?), you could've spent the night at each airport and logged the entire 3 day trip as one cross country flight.
 
mjburian said:
Interestingly(?), you could've spent the night at each airport and logged the entire 3 day trip as one cross country flight.
Click to expand...
Pilot time, however, is defined as flight time, which is the time the aircraft first moves under its own power for the purpose of flight until it comes to rest after landing. You can put an arbitrary amount of time delay between the legs, but it doesn' increase the loggable time.
 
mjburian said:
Interestingly(?), you could've spent the night at each airport and logged the entire 3 day trip as one cross country flight.
Click to expand...
Personally, for me, a flight ends when I shut the plane down for the day. I don't consider a 12 day, 4200 mile trip one long flight. An overnight ends the flight for me since the planning restarts that evening or next morning.
 
flyingron said:
Pilot time, however, is defined as flight time, which is the time the aircraft first moves under its own power for the purpose of flight until it comes to rest after landing. You can put an arbitrary amount of time delay between the legs, but it doesn' increase the loggable time.
Click to expand...

I suppose my wording could have been a little better. You're right, logging 72 hours wouldn't work... only the flight time over the 3 days in my example.
 
EdFred said:
Personally, for me, a flight ends when I shut the plane down for the day. I don't consider a 12 day, 4200 mile trip one long flight. An overnight ends the flight for me since the planning restarts that evening or next morning.
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Same here, I was just illustrating that it's legal.
 
Isn't the 50 mile thing just to meet certain requirements to get a pilot certificate? Like there is a requirement to do one 250 cross country leg for a commercial certificate. But to just log a flight as a cross country all that's required is you had to do some kind of planning for the flight that included figuring out how to navigate there?
 
luvflyin said:
Isn't the 50 mile thing just to meet certain requirements to get a pilot certificate? Like there is a requirement to do one 250 cross country leg for a commercial certificate. But to just log a flight as a cross country all that's required is you had to do some kind of planning for the flight that included figuring out how to navigate there?
Click to expand...
By definition, cross-country time includes any flight conducted by a pilot in an aircraft that includes a landing at a point other than the point of departure that includes the use of dead reckoning, pilotage, electronic navigation aids, radio aids, or other navigation systems to navigate to the landing point. Reference: 14 CFR 61.1(b)(3)(i).
 
jordane93 said:
By definition, cross-country time includes any flight conducted by a pilot in an aircraft that includes a landing at a point other than the point of departure that includes the use of dead reckoning, pilotage, electronic navigation aids, radio aids, or other navigation systems to navigate to the landing point. Reference: 14 CFR 61.1(b)(3)(i).
Click to expand...

Yeah. That was it.
 
jordane93 said:
By definition, cross-country time includes any flight conducted by a pilot in an aircraft that includes a landing at a point other than the point of departure that includes the use of dead reckoning, pilotage, electronic navigation aids, radio aids, or other navigation systems to navigate to the landing point. Reference: 14 CFR 61.1(b)(3)(i).
Click to expand...
This is another one of these insertions of fluff in the regs. I guess the guy was feeling literary. How do you get from departure to the destination without navigating using dead reckoning, pilotage, .... I guess this precludes taking off and flying around randomly and "oh my, there's an airport. Let's land."
 
What CAP rule mentions cross country time?

60-1 has a couple of restrictions on total time (such as qualifying for HP airplanes), but most of them are PIC time.

A REAL good way to build PIC time is to get a G1000 transition in a CAP 182 with a CAP instructor, if you can find one. Get yourself over the 100 PIC hurdle and you can be a TMP. Then go ferry airplanes on A missions. There always seems to be a 100 hour ferry needing help. 200 PIC and you can be an O-ride pilot or mission pilot. 500 PIC and you can be a tow pilot, ROTC or teacher O-ride pilot.

Transitions always seem to take more effort than expected, but the flip side is that they really help polish the skills. I expected the IFR transition to be trivial, since it sounded just like the instrument checkride. It wasn't.

The only place I've seen a 50 mile rule anywhere in 60-1 is that a VFR flight plan is required for VFR flights longer than that, unless other arrangements are made (mainly, monitoring by a mission base).
 
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flyingron said:
This is another one of these insertions of fluff in the regs. I guess the guy was feeling literary. How do you get from departure to the destination without navigating using dead reckoning, pilotage, .... I guess this precludes taking off and flying around randomly and "oh my, there's an airport. Let's land."
Click to expand...

Which I've done.
 
labbadabba said:
As long as your initial leg is >50nm it's an X/C.
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That's still not quite it.

The rule is that a cross country countable for the private and commercial certificate and the instrument rating, to use the exact words of the regulation, "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."

That's not a 1st leg requirement . a middle leg requirement, a last leg requirement or a total distance of flight requirement. So long as any point of landing is more than 50 NM from the original point of departure, the flight counts for the (regular) certificate and rating requirements.

Take, for example, KTKX M05 KDYR KHKA KMXA KPGR (link to skyvector). It counts even though not even one leg of the flight is more than 25 nm long.
 
MAKG1 said:
What CAP rule mentions cross country time?

60-1 has a couple of restrictions on total time (such as qualifying for HP airplanes), but most of them are PIC time.

A REAL good way to build PIC time is to get a G1000 transition in a CAP 182 with a CAP instructor, if you can find one. Get yourself over the 100 PIC hurdle and you can be a TMP. Then go ferry airplanes on A missions. There always seems to be a 100 hour ferry needing help. 200 PIC and you can be an O-ride pilot or mission pilot. 500 PIC and you can be a tow pilot, ROTC or teacher O-ride pilot.

Transitions always seem to take more effort than expected, but the flip side is that they really help polish the skills. I expected the IFR transition to be trivial, since it sounded just like the instrument checkride. It wasn't.

The only place I've seen a 50 mile rule anywhere in 60-1 is that a VFR flight plan is required for VFR flights longer than that, unless other arrangements are made (mainly, monitoring by a mission base).
Click to expand...
http://www.gocivilairpatrol.com/how_to_join/pilots_faq/
States:
The qualifications to become a Transport Mission Pilot are:
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During authorized Emergency Services missions, CAP Transport Pilots may transport CAP members, ferry aircraft, fly “high bird” communication sorties, and transport parts or equipment needed for missions.

  1. At least 18 years of age.
  2. Current and qualified CAP pilot in accordance with CAPR 60-1, with at least 100 hours pilot in command time including at least 50 hours of cross-country flying.
  3. Qualified General Emergency Services.
Click to expand...
That being said, I don't see any mention of Cross Country time in 60-1 either.

Either way, looks like I can legally log my flight at a XC, and I still have a lot more hours to log before I can get any "Paid For" hours and flights in, but that's quite all right. Got to keep flying and having fun while we can.

Cliff
 
It IS in the SQTR for TMP. So, yes, you do need it. Not sure why it isn't in 60-1. Maybe it's in another reg somewhere.

The advice would be similar to the 50 hours XC you need for the instrument rating. Grab the family and go have fun. Just like you're doing.

Though I wouldn't necessarily limit it to 51 miles. Longer XCs can be fun, too, if there is a good destination. Like, I took the family up to Lake Tahoe a few times. Very scenic flight.

Which wing are you in?
 
Oh, I agree, longer XC's are definetely fun, just didn't know how well my wife would handle the trip, nor did we have a lot of time.

So, the XC time is required afterall. However, the XC time can be any actual distance, just has to be to any other airport.

Cliff
 
Ky-221 is the wing. I'm a new member.

Clifg
 
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