Definition of Cross Country ??

[proxus]

Hello. Can anyone tell me when you are flying X-C and when you are not ? (JAR)

I can't remeber it, I couldn't find it when I was looking through the regs. In the back of my mind, 50NM+ from the departure aerodrome sounds well. Am I right ?

Best regards
Proxus

[BEagle]

See LASORS:

Cross-Country Flight: Any flight during the course of which the aircraft is more than 3nm from the aerodrome of departure

[Send Clowns]

Think of some of the circuits you have seen flown ...

[proxus]

that's almost every flight you'll fly ! but in practice you would not log all of them. Are you shure it isn't more like 30. It can't be considered cross country if you don't cross any ??

This is what I found regarding the FAA requirements for X-C flight:

Cross-Country Time
The basic definitions of cross-country time are found in 14 CFR Part 61.1 (b)(3). A cross-country flight is any flight that involves a landing at another airport and involves navigation. This may be relevant to you when you are looking to qualify under Part 135 pilot requirements, since there this basic definition of cross-country is used. However, there is a difference in this basic definition and the requirements for cross-country flight to count as the appropriate aeronautical experience for a certificate or rating.

In essence:

To meet the requirements for a Private or Commercial certificate or for an Instrument rating or to "exercise the privileges of a Recreational" certificate the flight must include a LANDING at a point MORE than 50NM from the point of original departure.
For an ATP certificate the requirement is for a FLIGHT (not a landing) more than 50NM straight line distance from the point of departure.
Otherwise any landing at any other airport counts as cross-country time. This is generally important for people looking to meet the 14 CFR Part 135 PIC requirements.


Proxus

[Send Clowns]

That is the FAA definition, very different. I first flew under FARs for my PPL, now teach under JARs. Was amusing to translate the x-country from all to 50nm and a landing into all bar the circuit, even then if badly-flown! JARs it's 3 nm, no landings required, as quoted from LASORs.

[Northern Highflyer]

So if I fly say 8 miles from the airfield and spend an hour practising stalls and steep turns, then return for just one landing I can class that as a XC flight ?

Just asking as I have never included these types of trips in my XC times before. :confused:

[proxus]

Is it maybe because of this that the typical JAR logbook doesn't have a X-C columns ?

Proxus

[BigGrecian]

Think its easier just to subtract the hours spent in the circuit for JAA cross country!

[chuks]

Two different worlds there.

I used to fly under FAA rules, when we would do two hours on a traffic-reporting flight, all the way around the Washington Beltway before landing back at Manassas unable to log that as X-C because we hadn't landed anywhere fifty miles away.

But here in Germany it used to be 'any flight out of sight of the aerodrome of departure' was a X-C flight. If that's 3 NM, okay.

In fact, some of the (prescribed) German VFR traffic patterns were so large that one was forced to navigate one's way back to the landing strip, since it was, indeed, out of sight. When I questioned the wisdom of getting so far off from the field at low level in a single-engine aircraft I was firmly told that I had to fly the pattern depicted in the AIC. It seemed a bit daft to me but those were the rules.

One day I needed to get three take-offs and landings in to stay current, when the visibility was down to minimums. I just went wazzing around the pattern, staying in sight of the field, with each circuit taking about 1:30. I landed to get such a ticking-off from the powers that be about not flying the presribed pattern, when I just smiled and pleaded ignorance of the various visual wayppoints, plus fear of blundering into a TV mast in the murk. I could just see going IMC in a Robin DR-400 and then trying to find Scharnhorst again. I would leave that to the Germans to try on their home turf. All I knew were the obstacles back 'home' in Nigeria.