10 takeoff and landings towered

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Trcpilot

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Cjayfly1
Asking strictly off of solo time!

Do the 10tko/landings have to be all in the same flight or if I’m training at a towered airport and I’ve made SOLO 10 night landings in the pattern after my private license over time SOLO does that count towards my 10 night landings? Thanks
 
GeorgeC said:
What does 61.129 say?
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5 hours in night VFR conditions with 10 takeoffs and 10 landings (with each landing involving a flight in the traffic pattern) at an airport with an operating control tower.

I doesn’t say takeoff/landing have to be in the same flight. It states the landings involved in the traffic pattern.

For example: night flight as simple as flying from kuza to Kclt to kuza . Just wanted clarification that’s all! Is this counted as 1 landing and 1 takeoff at kclt towered airport? Or do I have to go and do 10 consecutive circuits at kclt for the 10 landings to count?
 
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You can do 1 TO at one towered airport at night and land at another each night for 10 consecutive nights. You enter the pattern to land, right? There ya go.

Don’t read anything extra into the regs that you don’t see. It’s not always easy to interpret, but just read and interpret as you see it. There’s nothing wrong with asking here if you don’t get it. Also, ask your CFI when in doubt.

Enjoy! Fly safe!
 
455 Bravo Uniform said:
You can do 1 TO at one towered airport at night and land at another each night for 10 consecutive nights. You enter the pattern to land, right? There ya go.

Don’t read anything extra into the regs that you don’t see. It’s not always easy to interpret, but just read and interpret as you see it. There’s nothing wrong with asking here if you don’t get it. Also, ask your CFI when in doubt.

Enjoy! Fly safe!
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I appreciate it! Thank you so much! Just wanted to make sure I didn’t need to make any additional flights prior to checkride. Thank you
 
Yes it counts, but you need to notate in the remarks section that they were solo, so there’s no questions or doubts when the logbook audit on the checkride happens. I had bunches of night solo towered landings peppered in my logbook, but elected to just do those specifically again over the course of two flights to be safe.

Enjoy the checkride, it’s a pretty fun one!
 
FYI, the requirement to fly the traffic pattern is to prevent you from heading to a large airport, landing, stopping, taking off, climbing to 50 feet and landing again. I once did 5 full stop landings on one pass down the runway at KBAD (11,758 foot long runway) in a 7KCAB.
 
Trcpilot said:
5 hours in night VFR conditions with 10 takeoffs and 10 landings (with each landing involving a flight in the traffic pattern) at an airport with an operating control tower.

I doesn’t say takeoff/landing have to be in the same flight. It states the landings involved in the traffic pattern.
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See? You answered your own question.
 
RyanB said:
I had bunches of night solo towered landings peppered in my logbook, but elected to just do those specifically again over the course of two flights to be safe.
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I'm curious as to why you didn't feel "safe" and redid a requirement you already met. I've heard this kind of thing before with this and other requirements and it always makes me wonder why. After all, most of the requirements are a pretty simple yes/no, either you have it or you don't.
 
RussR said:
I'm curious as to why you didn't feel "safe" and redid a requirement you already met. I've heard this kind of thing before with this and other requirements and it always makes me wonder why. After all, most of the requirements are a pretty simple yes/no, either you have it or you don't.
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I think I had around 100 night flights over 30+ years when I did a commercial check ride (which I did just for fun at the time). But I learned that a picky examiner can tear your documentation to pieces if he wants to. For example, "How do I, the examiner, know that both the takeoff and the landing occurred at night, and not just one of them? How do I know that it was legally 'night' when you did it? How do I know you were solo when you just logged it as PIC? How do I know that the control tower was actually 'operating' at that time?" Those are all potential documentation pitfalls, even though the airman knows that those flights qualified. Fortunately, out of all those flights I was able to come up the required 10, mostly because I had a series of solo night currency flights logged with all the correct information. So I think a person looking for a commercial check ride might be wise to do it as RyanB suggested above.

As far as documenting that it was "in the traffic pattern" I suppose that the examiner could deny a straight in approach as being "in the traffic pattern" for purposes of the requirement.
 
dbahn said:
I think I had around 100 night flights over 30+ years when I did a commercial check ride (which I did just for fun at the time). But I learned that a picky examiner can tear your documentation to pieces if he wants to. For example, "How do I, the examiner, know that both the takeoff and the landing occurred at night, and not just one of them? How do I know that it was legally 'night' when you did it? How do I know you were solo when you just logged it as PIC? How do I know that the control tower was actually 'operating' at that time?"
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Well, yeah. If you don't log them properly, I guess you have to do them over. But most of those "how do I know" questions could be asked about last Tuesday too and have the same answer - "I logged it that way."

It's like 10 hours instrument for the commercial after having the instrument rating.
 
RussR said:
I'm curious as to why you didn't feel "safe" and redid a requirement you already met. I've heard this kind of thing before with this and other requirements and it always makes me wonder why. After all, most of the requirements are a pretty simple yes/no, either you have it or you don't.
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I think it really depends. For me it was the fact that most of the ones I had peppered within my logbook over the years didn’t state whether or not they were solo and I didn’t want any discrepancies to come up on the checkride so it was worth it to me to just make two flights specifically to fulfill that requirement and make it clear cut. I didn’t have to, it was completely by choice.
midlifeflyer said:
It's like 10 hours instrument for the commercial after having the instrument rating.
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Again, I think it’s DPE specific. My examiner wanted those 10 hours of instrument required for the Commercial to specifically say 61.129(a)(3)(i). So during my Instrument training, we made sure to notate that.
 
RyanB said:
Again, I think it’s DPE specific. My examiner wanted those 10 hours of instrument required for the Commercial to specifically say 61.129(a)(3)(i). So during my Instrument training, we made sure to notate that.
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That's what I meant about logging properly. Unfortunately, at this point, all DPEs should be looking for that.
 
midlifeflyer said:
That's what I meant about logging properly. Unfortunately, at this point, all DPEs should be looking for that.
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Agree. Ours is right by the book. When others hear about it, they often say “oh wow, he must be a hard examiner.” — No, he just plays by the book.
 
RyanB said:
Agree. Ours is right by the book. When others hear about it, they often say “oh wow, he must be a hard examiner.” — No, he just plays by the book.
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The DPEs here can comment on this, but just as the PTS/ACS was always an effort to create standards in the way pilots are tested, my sense is that there's an effort being made toward uniformity in what logbooks should show, especially with regional barriers having dropped. Just as there is with the changes a few years ago in the organization of FSDOs. There's always going to be individual variation, but when the FAA officially says, "do it this way," I expect it is being passed down.

Last week was the first time I was asked to act as the "ballast CFI" (I think that's @RussR' term for it :D) on a PDPIC long cross country for a commercial applicant. What the logbook entry should look like was my primary consideration.
 
dbahn said:
I think I had around 100 night flights over 30+ years when I did a commercial check ride (which I did just for fun at the time). But I learned that a picky examiner can tear your documentation to pieces if he wants to. For example, "How do I, the examiner, know that both the takeoff and the landing occurred at night, and not just one of them? How do I know that it was legally 'night' when you did it? How do I know you were solo when you just logged it as PIC? How do I know that the control tower was actually 'operating' at that time?" Those are all potential documentation pitfalls, even though the airman knows that those flights qualified. Fortunately, out of all those flights I was able to come up the required 10, mostly because I had a series of solo night currency flights logged with all the correct information. So I think a person looking for a commercial check ride might be wise to do it as RyanB suggested above.

As far as documenting that it was "in the traffic pattern" I suppose that the examiner could deny a straight in approach as being "in the traffic pattern" for purposes of the requirement.
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I've never actually had an examiner be that argumentative about it, nor have any of the applicants I've sent up reported that either. But the answer to every single one of those questions is "because it was, and I logged it as such". I'd have to guess that over 99% of the hours in my logbook have NO way to definitively prove them. The ONLY possible way for a DPE to behave when reviewing logbooks is to believe the applicant unless there is actually something that proves otherwise.

RyanB said:
I think it really depends. For me it was the fact that most of the ones I had peppered within my logbook over the years didn’t state whether or not they were solo and I didn’t want any discrepancies to come up on the checkride so it was worth it to me to just make two flights specifically to fulfill that requirement and make it clear cut. I didn’t have to, it was completely by choice.
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Nothing wrong with doing them again, of course, but you could have done what a Commercial applicant of mine did for his checkride just yesterday. When we were reviewing his logbook weeks ago, and running through the 61.129 requirements, he went ahead and wrote "solo" in the remarks for any flights that he remembered were definitely solo (which was a lot because he flew for work regularly). Nothing wrong with that, it's not pencil-whipping a solo requirement, it's updating your logbook to show compliance with 61.129. We used that to make sure he met the solo requirement, and he was in fact a few landings short of the night requirement, so he went out and got those done. But he didn't have to do all 10 - that night solo towered landing 20 years ago still counts today. Can you prove it was at night/solo/towered? No, but you can't do that about the one last week either.

midlifeflyer said:
Last week was the first time I was asked to act as the "ballast CFI" (I think that's @RussR' term for it :D) on a PDPIC long cross country for a commercial applicant. What the logbook entry should look like was my primary consideration.
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Yes, that would be my favorite term for it!
 
RussR said:
I've never actually had an examiner be that argumentative about it, nor have any of the applicants I've sent up reported that either. But the answer to every single one of those questions is "because I said it was". I'd have to guess that over 99% of the hours in my logbook have NO way to definitively prove them. The ONLY possible way for a DPE to behave when reviewing logbooks is to believe the applicant unless there is actually something that proves otherwise.
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That’s really it. I have seen our DPE turn folks away because they didn’t have the aeronautical experience required. Some I’ve seen didn’t have it logged correctly, others just missed a requirement in the FAR.

Like I say, it didn’t matter much to me to make specific flights to satisfy the requirements - just more time in my logbook. ;)
 
RyanB said:
That’s really it. I have seen our DPE turn folks away because they didn’t have the aeronautical experience required. Some I’ve seen didn’t have it logged correctly, others just missed a requirement in the FAR.
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That's a little different than the scenarios dbahn posed, that I was responding to, though. Stories of checkrides where the applicant showed up not even meeting the requirements are many, and I'm sure the DPEs really really hate that. It just wastes everybody's time.

Yes, an applicant who doesn't meet the requirements needs to be turned away (and the CFI talked to). If they didn't log them correctly, then that's functionally the same thing - if it's a solo or night or XC requirement and you don't somehow indicate it's solo or night or XC, then it's fair for the DPE to say it doesn't count.
 
RyanB said:
Agree. Ours is right by the book. When others hear about it, they often say “oh wow, he must be a hard examiner.” — No, he just plays by the book.
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Out of curiousity, is there a publication with specific logbook format requirements (e.g., referencing 61.129) published?
 
Eric Pauley said:
Out of curiousity, is there a publication with specific logbook format requirements (e.g., referencing 61.129) published?
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Sort of - FAR 91.51 describes details for logbook entries, but the wildcard in that regulation is the "acceptable to the administrator" clause, which is what some of the discussion on this thread addresses.

I know of a highly experience CFI who insists that to be "acceptable to the administrator" I should log the number of landings to a full stop towing gliders rather than logging the number of tows. I think that's a silly opinion, as I always have to do a full top to hook up the next glider. However, only the administrator can really answer that question, but it's best not to ask him. :)
 
Eric Pauley said:
Out of curiousity, is there a publication with specific logbook format requirements (e.g., referencing 61.129) published?
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No. Without getting into “crayon on a napkin” silliness, you could record all your flights in a blank notebook so long as the entries fit what you need to document the satisfaction of training and currency requirements, and anything else you want to track.
 
midlifeflyer said:
No. Without getting into “crayon on a napkin” silliness, you could record all your flights in a blank notebook so long as the entries fit what you need to document the satisfaction of training and currency requirements, and anything else you want to track.
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This is all well and good, but as noted above some DPEs are pushing specific formatting requirements, which people are referring to as being “by the book”. Sounds like there is no such book!
 
Eric Pauley said:
This is all well and good, but as noted above some DPEs are pushing specific formatting requirements, which people are referring to as being “by the book”. Sounds like there is no such book!
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I think there may be a distinction between "pushing specific formatting requirements" and actually failing a check ride for lack of adequate documentation. While it might be a fine line between the two, I suspect DPEs fail an applicant on the basis of there being NO documentation of the requirements being done, which probably happens more than one would think and would typically reflect on the instructor who signed off on the check ride.

The requirement for night landings for the commercial certificate has a lot of required parameters in the regulation and just happens to be one that could be readily challenged, and a CFI recommending the check ride should make sure it's logged in a manner "acceptable to the administrator" before signing the applicant off. Most CFIs already know what's actually acceptable to a particular DPE, because it does sometimes vary.
 
midlifeflyer said:
That's what I meant about logging properly. Unfortunately, at this point, all DPEs should be looking for that.
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dbahn said:
I think there may be a distinction between "pushing specific formatting requirements" and actually failing a check ride for lack of adequate documentation. While it might be a fine line between the two, I suspect DPEs fail an applicant on the basis of there being NO documentation of the requirements being done, which probably happens more than one would think and would typically reflect on the instructor who signed off on the check ride.

The requirement for night landings for the commercial certificate has a lot of required parameters in the regulation and just happens to be one that could be readily challenged, and a CFI recommending the check ride should make sure it's logged in a manner "acceptable to the administrator" before signing the applicant off. Most CFIs already know what's actually acceptable to a particular DPE, because it does sometimes vary.
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This is the main point I'm concerned about. If the logbook remarks refer to the areas of operation mentioned in the regulation but don't specifically mention 61.129, what precedent does the DPE have for not accepting that?

I read through the numerous past threads on this and associated letters of interpretation (updated links here):

My takeaway from all of this is that, while there is no requirement to specifically mention 61.129 in areas of operation, training performed pre-private is excluded out as not to commercial standards. Instrument training taken post-private for the rating can be used for commercial, but the rating itself is not sufficient. Others have noted (though not explicitly defined in any interpretation I found) that the 20 hours of training must include, not consists solely of the areas of operation, so post-private dual can conceivably count for the 20 hours even if it does not explicitly call out areas of operation.
 
Eric Pauley said:
This is the main point I'm concerned about. If the logbook remarks refer to the areas of operation mentioned in the regulation but don't specifically mention 61.129, what precedent does the DPE have for not accepting that?

I read through the numerous past threads on this and associated letters of interpretation (updated links here):

My takeaway from all of this is that, while there is no requirement to specifically mention 61.129 in areas of operation, training performed pre-private is excluded out as not to commercial standards. Instrument training taken post-private for the rating can be used for commercial, but the rating itself is not sufficient. Others have noted (though not explicitly defined in any interpretation I found) that the 20 hours of training must include, not consists solely of the areas of operation, so post-private dual can conceivably count for the 20 hours even if it does not explicitly call out areas of operation.
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There is no specific requirement to put "61.129" in the remarks. However, it's a sure-fire easy way to comply, and so it's generally recommended now.
 
Eric Pauley said:
This is all well and good, but as noted above some DPEs are pushing specific formatting requirements, which people are referring to as being “by the book”. Sounds like there is no such book!
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ATP Flight School wrote a book about that. Specific to their program of course.


There’s no harm in marking a flight by yourself as solo and add in a remark re: satisfies 14 CFR 61.x for certain things.
 
Eric Pauley said:
This is all well and good, but as noted above some DPEs are pushing specific formatting requirements, which people are referring to as being “by the book”. Sounds like there is no such book!
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I didn’t see that in the posts. I did see comments about the information required, but the only “format” I’m aware of is that the requirements are contemporaneously documented so there is no question they were met.

The traditional logbook is a spreadsheet containing columns for the 61.51 requirements for what must be logged for each flight or lesson and for some extra-regulatory things that are common, sometimes with extra blank columns for things you want to track. Then of course, a remarks area for descriptions.
 
This doesn't need to be complicated. If something is specifically required by the regulation then log it with the same wording that is used in the regulation that requires it.

When I was instructing, most recently in 2009/10, I made a checklist for each rating I was teaching with each required flight and ground training item. It would be two or three printed pages. I kept one for each student and used to to ensure that I had logged the flight or ground training exactly as required at least once for that student. I'd copy the regulation's wording from that checklist into the remarks section of the logbook then check it off the checklist. Same thing for experience requirements. I'd also review the student's checklist before each lesson to see what needed to be covered and endorsed. Some of my flight lessons would take two, or even three, lines in the logbook but everything required was logged before solo, solo X/C, or checkride. I'd send the completed checklist with the student to the checkride as each item was dated to make it easier to find in the logbook.

Nothing wrong with going back through the logbook to fill in missing requirements, i.e. solo or night t/o & lnd, as long as you remember that the requirement was met.
 
Larry in TN said:
This doesn't need to be complicated. If something is specifically required by the regulation then log it with the same wording that is used in the regulation that requires it.

When I was instructing, most recently in 2009/10, I made a checklist for each rating I was teaching with each required flight and ground training item. It would be two or three printed pages. I kept one for each student and used to to ensure that I had logged the flight or ground training exactly as required at least once for that student. I'd copy the regulation's wording from that checklist into the remarks section of the logbook then check it off the checklist. Same thing for experience requirements. I'd also review the student's checklist before each lesson to see what needed to be covered and endorsed. Some of my flight lessons would take two, or even three, lines in the logbook but everything required was logged before solo, solo X/C, or checkride. I'd send the completed checklist with the student to the checkride as each item was dated to make it easier to find in the logbook.

Nothing wrong with going back through the logbook to fill in missing requirements, i.e. solo or night t/o & lnd, as long as you remember that the requirement was met.
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Like this?

flight training checklist.pdf

drive.google.com drive.google.com
 
dmspilot said:
Like this?
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Yes. Formatted differently, single column, but that's exactly the idea.

I didn't certify it, like you do, just a date for when each requirement was logged or completed. It was not meant to be an official part of the training log. Just a tool for me, to ensure no requirement was missed, and for my student, to find any of the endorsements in the logbook.
 
Larry in TN said:
Nothing wrong with going back through the logbook to fill in missing requirements, i.e. solo or night t/o & lnd, as long as you remember that the requirement was met
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Nothing wrong but it can raise questions you’d rather not deal with if the additions are detectable. Sadly, that happened to an acquaintance of mine and the rejection of his solo time by the DPE for his commercial turned him away from aviation completely.
 
midlifeflyer said:
Nothing wrong but it can raise questions you’d rather not deal with if the additions are detectable. Sadly, that happened to an acquaintance of mine and the rejection of his solo time by the DPE for his commercial turned him away from aviation completely.
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I am not doubting that happened. However, I do question the legitimacy of the DPE questioning what's logged just because it's in a different color ink or something. If I say the flight was solo when I initially logged it that day, or when I review my logbook a year or whatever later, who's to question it? On what basis? I would have a real problem with that if it came up on a checkride of mine.
 
Does 5 hours in night VFR conditions with 10 takeoffs and 10 landings (with each landing involving a flight in the traffic pattern) at an airport with an operating control tower.

Really mean 5 hours in night VFR conditions with 10 takeoffs and 10 landings (with each landing involving a flight in the traffic pattern) at any airport with an operating control tower?

After the stupid ruling about an instrument rating not constituting the 10 hours of instrument training required, I would nor be so sure.
 
RussR said:
I am not doubting that happened. However, I do question the legitimacy of the DPE questioning what's logged just because it's in a different color ink or something. If I say the flight was solo when I initially logged it that day, or when I review my logbook a year or whatever later, who's to question it? On what basis? I would have a real problem with that if it came up on a checkride of mine.
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I DPE is obviously suspecting pencil-whipping/record falsification. I agree with you on the DOE’s questionable legitimacy. But I’d rather not deal with the question if I can avoid it
 
IMO, the DPE can question the entries, but if you explain that you did not initially log solo and went back and only added Solo to the ones you are absolutely sure were solo, there should not be any issues.
 
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