What is considered "cross country"?

Keeping it super simple, Part 61 recognizes three distinct types of cross country flights. Which type you use depends on what you are going to use it for. I'll leave out the semi-obvious you gotta navigate there in some way:

  • Landing at another airport > 50 NM away. Qualifies for all purposes; required to qualify for all Part 61 pilot certificates and ratings except ATP;
  • >50 NM without a landing. A tip of the hat to our military flyers, but qualifies for ATP even if you were not in the military;
  • Any distance with a landing at another airport. Basic definition; for the FAA, applies to such things as Part 135 pilot qualifications. Might apply to other things, many of it having nothing to do with the FAA.
We all need to identify the landing >50 NM away type until we have enough for our needs. Beyond that what cross country time we log is up to us.
 
My primary logbook is MyFlightBook on my iPhone. I use the cross-country time field for flights that count toward a certificate or rating (a landing at least 50nm away from the point of departure) and I use the additional property cross-country less than 50nm for all other cross-country flights (a landing at some point other than the point of departure). That way I have both numbers to report as cross-country time for other purposes and a single place to look for the >=50nm flights that count toward a certificate or rating. I then transfer everything to my paper logbook, and when I do that I ignore the short cross-country flights and only log cross-country time that counts toward a certificate or rating. Since I do this consistently, I know exactly what the numbers are when it comes time to apply for a certificate or rating. For me, the key is consistency. If you do it one way this year and another way next year, you'll have a much harder time later on when it comes to sorting it out.
 
I log only if over 50nm straight line distance from A to B. Logging if it is shorter than that doesn't make sense to me personally since you can't use it for ratings, etc., so it would make it much more difficult in the logbook to differentiate "usable" XC time vs not. If I go somewhere that is only 30 nm I will still write about it in the remarks and in the "to" and "from" sections, just leave the XC time as zero
 
Tantalum said:
I log only if over 50nm straight line distance from A to B. Logging if it is shorter than that doesn't make sense to me personally since you can't use it for ratings, etc., so it would make it much more difficult in the logbook to differentiate "usable" XC time vs not. If I go somewhere that is only 30 nm I will still write about it in the remarks and in the "to" and "from" sections, just leave the XC time as zero
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What I've read is that the sole negative consequence of doing it this way is that you may be short-changing yourself on XC time on your resume if you are applying for a flying job. Unless you are OCD, then you also feel bad not logging something that you did.
 
iamtheari said:
negative consequence of doing it this way is that you may be short-changing yourself on XC time
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I've worried about that, but I've also been hoping that eventually the electronic logbooks will get better that I can import something as a CSV from Foreflight that may make mass updates if I ever need to make it easier. Since I put the actual identifier into the to and from fields and in the remarks I imagine it wouldn't be impossible theoretically to write a script that will find those flights and add the PIC time as XC
 
midlifeflyer said:
  • Any distance with a landing at another airport. Basic definition; for the FAA, applies to such things as Part 135 pilot qualifications. Might apply to other things, many of it having nothing to do with the FAA.
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That's interesting. Then most of us have TONS of XC time...
 
jordane93 said:
Negative. A cross country requires a landing somewhere else other than the point of departure. I personally don't log anything that's under 50 miles but it's not wrong to. You're telling people that they can't log a cross country unless it's greater than 50 miles which is completely wrong. You've even quoted the definition that argues against your position.
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No. I am saying how you log is up to you (or a CFI if you have one along). But if all your hours are logged as cross country because you make no distinction between a local flight and a cross country flight then your log book will look strange to anyone else reading it. I also noted that the 50nm is arbitrary but has some basis in reality since it comes from the FAA interpretation of cross country for purposes of flights to get certifications. Also, the idea of landing at an airport other than your takeoff point is also arbitrary but would eliminate local flights that do nothing more than go out, loop around and come back.

My cross country hours are multi waypoint, flight planned, over 200nm and usually involve at least one night stay away from home. Those hours balance pretty well with any local flying I do. But that is not a criteria it's just how it works out. I never log local flights even if they are well over 200nm where I takeoff, fly in a big circle and land back at the home field in the same morning or afternoon.
 
paflyer said:
That's interesting. Then most of us have TONS of XC time...
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Maybe you do. It's right there for all to read in the part of FAR 61.1(b) that begins with the somewhat vague "Cross-country time means-". ;)

In fact, it's the very first of the cross country definitions. And if you have some use for it, given its imitations, great.
 
citizen5000 said:
No. I am saying how you log is up to you
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Absolutely. It may be an official record of flight time, but you have possession, control, and a pen.

OTOH, I've heard tell of a few pilots who have had their certificates and ratings revoked under 61.59 who might be a little sorry they logged the way they wanted.
 
citizen5000 said:
No. I am saying how you log is up to you (or a CFI if you have one along). But if all your hours are logged as cross country because you make no distinction between a local flight and a cross country flight then your log book will look strange to anyone else reading it. I also noted that the 50nm is arbitrary but has some basis in reality since it comes from the FAA interpretation of cross country for purposes of flights to get certifications. Also, the idea of landing at an airport other than your takeoff point is also arbitrary but would eliminate local flights that do nothing more than go out, loop around and come back.

My cross country hours are multi waypoint, flight planned, over 200nm and usually involve at least one night stay away from home. Those hours balance pretty well with any local flying I do. But that is not a criteria it's just how it works out. I never log local flights even if they are well over 200nm where I takeoff, fly in a big circle and land back at the home field in the same morning or afternoon.
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I agree it will look funky if every you log every flight as an XC but it's not wrong to do so if logged properly according to the regs
 
jordane93 said:
I agree it will look funky if every you log every flight as an XC but it's not wrong to do so if logged properly according to the regs
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Out of my past 350 hours, around 5 have been local flights... It helps your XC stats when gas is $3/gallon cheaper 45nm away.
 
jordane93 said:
I agree it will look funky if every you log every flight as an XC but it's not wrong to do so if logged properly according to the regs
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I never formally logged less than 50 mm cross countries, but they are all in my logbook anyway and I can run a total of all "generic" cross country time very easily (eLog). I don't log an airport in the route box unless I land there. I also picked up the convention of logging a flight without a landing at another airport as "local" from my CFI back when I was a student pilot.
 
Swampfox201 said:
When I was working on hours for my Commercial rating a lot of my cross countries were to a private strip because my girlfriend lived right across the road. It was awesome until I went for my checkride and the DPE measured it...49.5 miles. He sent me home because I was something like 20 cross country hours short after he threw them out.
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Your instructor the next evening at the bar to another instructor:

"The DPE gave me a bunch of grief over not checking if my student's booty call airport was far enough away to be an X/C, and I'm not even mad!"

LOL!
 
Is there any reason to log CC, if you seek no further ratings or jobs?

I've been logging it just because my logbook has a column for it, but I can't actually think of any good reason for it. It's not needed for currency. My insurance company never asks for CC hours, nor does the FAA when I apply for my medical. Nobody else seems to care what hours I do for anything at all.
 
NoHeat said:
Is there any reason to log CC, if you seek no further ratings or jobs?

I've been logging it just because my logbook has a column for it, but I can't actually think of any good reason for it. It's not needed for currency. My insurance company never asks for CC hours, nor does the FAA when I apply for my medical. Nobody else seems to care what hours I do for anything at all.
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I'm pretty sure cross country has a column in our logbooks primarily for bookkeeping purposes - to make it easy to identify and calculate for the times you need it. If you look, you will see it's not one of the "each person must enter the following information for each flight or lesson logged:" items in 61.51, the logging rule. So, if you don't need it for anything, there's no regulatory reason to log it.

i didn't use every column in my paper log. I continue to log cross country because it allows me to easily review and reminisce those longer flights and takes an extra second OTOH, I never used the "Day" column because I thought it was stupid.
 
Tantalum said:
I log only if over 50nm straight line distance from A to B. Logging if it is shorter than that doesn't make sense to me personally since you can't use it for ratings, etc., so it would make it much more difficult in the logbook to differentiate "usable" XC time vs not. If I go somewhere that is only 30 nm I will still write about it in the remarks and in the "to" and "from" sections, just leave the XC time as zero
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After 500 XC (50nm) it doesn't matter for any ratings.
 
Fair enough, but for the lower time folks out there like me who only get to fly 3-5 hrs per month every little bit counts!
 
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