From: geoff@peck.com (Geoff Peck)
Newsgroups: rec.aviation,rec.aviation.misc
Subject: Re: What Constitutes "Cross Country"
Keywords: Cross Country,X-country,Legal
Date: 5 Oct 92 03:41:58 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: Geoffrey G. Peck, Consultant, San Jose CA

In article <BvM1KB.33J@access.digex.com> stephens@access.digex.com
(John Stephens) asks about cross-country flight requirements:
> I can't find a clear, unqualified definition of X-country -- one that
> applies to logging time as X-country time after the Private or Instrument
> ratings have been obtained.  Is there one?  Is it 25 miles, or 50 miles?
> Do you have to actually LAND at a second airport (more than 25/50 miles
> away), or does a missed approach (in IFR conditions) count?

Well, it depends on why you wish to count something as cross-country.
If you wish to use the time to satisfy requirements for a higher rating,
then you must satisy the specific requirements outlined in the FARs for
that particular rating.  To wit:

For the instrument rating, FAR 61.65(e)(1):
    A total of 125 hours of pilot flight time, of which 50 hours are as
    pilot in command in cross-country flight in a powered aircraft with
    other than a student pilot certificate. Each cross-country flight
    must have a landing at a point more than 50 nautical miles from the
    original departure point.
This says that you must ***land*** at a point more than 50nm from the
original departure point.  You may count the entire flight as cross
country, regardless of how circuitous a routing or how long the flight
takes, as long as it can be regarded as a single flight.  (I.e., if you
flew from A 25nm to B, stayed overnight, and then flew from B 26nm to C,
and A->C is 51nm, you could not log that as cross-country for these
purposes because A->B and B->C are different flights.)

You cannot count student cross-country time towards the 50 hours of
cross-country for the instrument rating, but you can count instrument
training flights, provided that a ***landing*** is made at least 50nm from
the point of origin.

For the commercial certificate, FAR 61.129(b)(3)(ii):
     50 hours of cross-country flights, each flight with a landing at a
     point more than 50 nautical miles from the original departure point.
     One flight must have landings at a minimum of three points, one of
     which is at least 150 nautical miles from the original departure
     point if the flight is conducted in Hawaii, or at least 250 nautical
     miles from the original departure point if it is conducted
     elsewhere.
This is very similar to the instrument rating requirements.

For the ATP, things get a bit fuzzier.  FAR 61.xxx(b)(2):
     (2) At least 1,500 hours of flight time as a pilot, including at
	 least --
	 (i) 500 hours of cross-country flight time; [...]
What counts as cross-country flight time is left to the discretion of the
FAA inspector who evaluates a candidate's preparation before authorizing
the candidate to take the ATP written exam.  The guidelines which the FAA
publishes on this subject change from time to time.  At this point, most
inspectors will question the use of a 4-hour 51nm instrument training
flight as a cross-country flight for the ATP -- the flight must appear to
have been "reasonable".  At one point, the FAA allowed any flight
in which at least two navaids were used, regardless of landing locations,
to count as cross-country towards the ATP.

Bottom line:  when you get this far, you should have more than enough
"real" cross-country experience.  Go out and fly across the U.S. a few
times if you're in doubt.  (When I went through this interview a while ago,
the FAA inspector was thumbing through the logs, and asked about an
instrument training flight which was logged as cross-country.  When he
grumbled that that kind of flight shouldn't really be logged as 100%
cross-country, I suggested that I'd be happy to eliminate all flights which
were less than 250nm, and I'd still handily meet the 500 hour requirement.
I pointed to a few of those transcontinental traversals.  The inspector
smiled, and then we started discussing more important things, like where
the best scenery between X and Y was...)

> Examples:
> 1.  VFR/IFR flight to an airport 35 miles away, touch-and-go, return to home 
>     base.  Is this time loggable as X-country?

You can log it as cross-country if you wish, but you can't count that
cross-country time towards any advanced rating (possibly except the ATP).
So I'd say don't log it as cross-country.  Simply, 35 < 50.

> 2.  IFR flight to an airport 65 miles away, instrument approach, missed 
>     approach, return to home base.  Is this time loggable as X-country?

No.  You didn't land.

> 3.  Is any missed approach countable for a X-country?  How far into the 
>     approach do you have to get?  Past FAF?  To MDA?  To DH/MAP?

You have to make physical contact with the runway.  Landing is a fairly
explicit maneuver, and the word "landing" is what is used in the FARs.
That's when the rubber meets the road, er, runway.

						Geoff