Cross-Country Question
 

Hello All,

I was wondering if someone could tell me what is classed as a cross country flight and which flights you would record as cross country in your logbook.

Can local area flights count?

Thanks in advance.

Rdbc

From LASORS 2008, page 71:

BUT... For the "experience requirements" of various licenses, ratings and so forth (eg. PPL, CPL, IR) this definition is normally augmented with a specific distance requirement.

So for PPL your XC needs to be 150 nm, with two intermediate stops, for CPL it needs to be 300 nm with two intermediate stops, and so forth.

Be aware though that if you EVER intend to use any of your time towards an FAA certificate, then the FAA only count distances greater than 50nm (straight line) between two different airfields. Some FAA ratings require cross country requirements to be met - for example the FAA IR requires 50hrs PIC X/C (obviously > 50nm)......

As mentioned in Euroland the rules are different but to be consistent I only ever log flights from a to b > 50nm straight line as X/C.

Thanks for the help guys. Much appreciated.

Been discussed several times before - and the answer depends on the purpose.

For keeping my own log book for my PPL flying, not attempting to get any licence or rating or anything, I choose to log as XC time if I draw a line on the map. If I just "go flying" locally without doing any actual navigation (other than looking at well-known territory out of the window) then I choose not to log it as XC. Thus my log book tells me how much time I have spent "navigating" - it doesn't tell anyone else anything very much.

The 3nm quoted in the ANO and LASORS is for the purpose of defining the privileges of a FI(Restricted) who may not send a student on their first solo cross country i.e. more than 3nm from the airfield.

For the purposes of gaining a licence, cross country flight is regarded as a flight from A to B or a flight from A to A involving one or more preplanned turning points. Thats why it is recommended you list turning points in the log for flights claimed for this purpose. Once you have a licence, there really is no formal definition of a cross country flight.

Not disagreeing but in my first lesson we went well beyond 3nm, but it is not listed as such and not sure I can see where I would list turning points in my log book.

Apologies have one entry so far, second weather permitting coming thursday.