Long Cross country 51.8nm straight line without landing at airport?

[dmspilot]

Going back to the original post, looks like the plan may have been OK but the decision not to land at one of the airports due to conditions cut it short.

It happens. I diverted on two of my student solo cross countries, but I landed at another airport instead of giving up.

I agree the plan would have worked if the entire thing was flown. I just don't see value in doing two short legs first before the key one. Seemed natural to me to want to get the most important and challenging part over with up front.

 

[Matthew]

I just looked up my student solo xc.

Leg 1) 63 NM
Leg 2) 76 NM
Leg 3) 113 NM

I’m pretty sure that last leg was technically longer because I think I used a VOR or airway on the way back so there was a dogleg. The two stops were at first-time-to-me airports. I stopped at the 2nd stop for a break and chatted with the line guy at the desk. He had a business card calling himself a “Fuel Delivery Engineer”.

I hope I will always remember that flight: middle of the day, middle of the week, middle of nowhere KS. No GPS so all pilotage and the frequency was so quiet I thought my radio wasn’t working. It was awesome and I felt like a real pilot.

To the OP: you did part of it, do it for real. Don’t stress over it, have fun. And try a different set of airports. You can do it, there’s no doubt in your CFIs mind. You already showed good decision making by your diversion, so there should be no doubt in your mind either. This is supposed to be the best experience of your training, you get to put the whole package together. Yeah, it sucks it might affect your checkride schedule, but one thing flying has taught me is patience.

Keep us posted.

 

[midlifeflyer]

I’m pretty sure that last leg was technically longer because I think I used a VOR or airway on the way back so there was a dogleg

That doesn’t make it longer from a cross country regulation standpoint.

 

[Matthew]

That doesn’t make it longer from a cross country regulation standpoint.

Yeah, I know, but it probably added a few tenths to the logbook entry.

 

[TommyG]

I mean, 51 is good enough. if you put a ruler on the chart and it's 51nm, who is going to challenge you? That being said, I would think students should flight plan alternates for all of their landings on the long XC and make sure there are alternates >50nm for the last take off. You should never assume you're going to be able to land at your planned destination hours before you get there. The OP and the CFI should have had an alternate in the plan for the >50nm leg.

Why do the bare minimum?

 

[Rene]

. . . . IIRC, doesn’t Hawaii have special rules about this?

Why? I'm pretty sure that HON to LAX or SFO is more than 50 nmi.

 

[morleyz]

Why do the bare minimum?

Because most students are paying by the hour and they're not all fabulously wealthy.

 

[AvNavCom]

Why? I'm pretty sure that HON to LAX or SFO is more than 50 nmi.

Sure, until you forget to land at a third airport and suddenly it doesn't count for your long cross-country! Haha!

I recently did a coast-to-coast and was happy that it would knock out the Commercial long cross-country requirement. Totally forgot that it requires three landings (duh) and nearly ended up with a three day flight which wouldn't have counted. Happily I stopped to top off fuel before launching into the Sierra Nevadas, so I got my three landings on the first day. Phew!

 

[midlifeflyer]

Sure, until you forget to land at a third airport and suddenly it doesn't count for your long cross-country! Haha!

I recently did a coast-to-coast and was happy that it would knock out the Commercial long cross-country requirement. Totally forgot that it requires three landings (duh) and nearly ended up with a three day flight which wouldn't have counted. Happily I stopped to top off fuel before launching into the Sierra Nevadas, so I got my three landings on the first day. Phew!

Not to worry. I’m sure you would have landed three times during that 3-day cross country coast to coast flight.

 

[AvNavCom]

Not to worry. I’m sure you would have landed three times during that 3-day cross country coast to coast flight.

That actually raises an interesting question for students: is there a limit to what can be considered one flight? The classic example one in which you are flying from your home airport to a second, reasonably close airport,stopping there, and then continuing on to a third airport which is greater than 50NM from the second airport but not 50NM from the home airport. Then you return home. In this case, if you log the entire thing as one flight, it can't be counted a cross-country because you didn't land more than 50NM from your point of origin. But if you log the flight from your home airport to the second airport as one flight, and everything else as a second flight, then suddenly the latter becomes loggable as cross-country time.

In my situation, I flew 2,731NM over three days, with a total of seven landings after departing my point of origin. The first day was 746NM and had three landings away from my point of origin, which obviously meets Commercial long cross-country requirements. But let's say that I didn't stop to top off gas after that first hour of flight and only landed at two airports. Would it be reasonable, from a DPE point of view, to count (and log) separate days as a single flight?

The regs don't speak to limitations on this, as far as I'm aware, leaving it up to pilot discretion. So is there a limit? Can I stay somewhere overnight and still consider the following day to be a continuation of the previous day's flight? What if I stay a few days due to weather?

Fun to think about.

 

[midlifeflyer]

That actually raises an interesting question for students: is there a limit to what can be considered one flight?

The applicable Chief Counsel and other guidance from the FAA leaves It to the pilot’s discretion. But like most everything else that is similar, there is ultimately a limit. I had a classmate in law school who referred to this as the “BS Doctrine.” You can quote all the rules, regulations, statutes, and cases you want, but at some point the court will call ‘Bullsh#t’.”

Where is that limit? Beats me. I recall in one discussion in this subject many years ago, a pilot quipped that he considered the several thousand hours of flight in his logbook one very long cross country flight. Less extreme, but if you fly somewhere on vacation and spend two weeks there before returning, do even you think of it as a single flight? OTOH, I think treating a coast to coast flight with stops for overnight, refueling, and meals is easily and reasonably considered a single cross country flight.

It’s not really about how you log it. Logging in one line has been a paper convention, but only really required by electronic logbooks.

 

[jayhawk74]

I got my Commercial from a 141 school back in the late 70s. The long cross country that they had us do was Carlsbad, CA to Las Vegas then to Tucson and back to Carlsbad. They always made it a 2 day event so every student could spend the night in Las Vegas

 

[Pinecone]

As another note, even though the regs don’t appear to be written this way, a couple of DPEs in my area require EACH leg to be 50NM+.

They are rooted in the past. This was the case in the late 70s when I did my PP. And I think still in the early 80s when I did my helicopter ratings.

But the CURRENT rule does not require that. If a DPE is doing so, someone should let the local FSDO know they are requiring something not in the regs.