Logging cross country time - ForeFlight Logbook

CC268

CC268

Final Approach
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CC268
So I know I can log any flight as a cross country when: "conducted by a pilot in an aircraft that includes a landing at a point other than the point of departure that includes the use of dead reckoning, pilotage, electronic navigation aids, radio aids, or other navigation systems to navigate to the landing point. Reference: 14 CFR 61.1(b)(3)(i)."

However, for my "commercial certificate, instrument rating, or for the purposes of exercising recreational pilot privileges (except in a rotorcraft) under 61.101(c), cross-country time requires a point of landing that is more than 50 nm straight-line distance from the original point of departure. 14 CFR 61.1(b)(3)(ii)"

So for instance my flight from Deer Valley (KDVT) to Wickenburg (E25) is 39NM. ForeFlight has a section for Cross Country and Distance. I could log it...but it seems like it would jsut be easiest to only log cross country time if it is over 50NM.

What do you guys do/think?
 
Yea, if it's not 50nm or more, I don't bother logging it as XC time.
 
Personally, I only log it as XC time if the straight airport to airport distance is 50.1NM or more. So your Deer Valley to Wickenburg flight isn't XC.

And to rekindle the logbook wars... MyFlightbook backed up to Dropbox backed up with entries into paper book backed up with photos backed up to Dropbox and CD-RW
 
Thanks guys thats what I figured
 
I also have always used the cross country column for >50 NM flights. But there is some limited value to logging the shorter cross country flights. Part 135 qualification, some insurance applications.

When I went to an eLog I already had a logging method that my primary instructors used for flights that did not go to another airport. Rather than 7B2-7B2, they would write 7B2 LOCAL. I picked up the habit. So, if I ever need a tally of all my cross country time, all I need to do is query for flights that do not include the word LOCAL.
 
midlifeflyer said:
I also have always used the cross country column for >50 NM flights. But there is some limited value to logging the shorter cross country flights. Part 135 qualification, some insurance applications.

When I went to an eLog I already had a logging method that my primary instructors used for flights that did not go to another airport. Rather than 7B2-7B2, they would write 7B2 LOCAL. I picked up the habit. So, if I ever need a tally of all my cross country time, all I need to do is query for flights that do not include the word LOCAL.
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Kind of a silly question but at what point do you log something as two separate flights in your logbook? For instance last Sunday I flew from Deer Valley to Chandler...I then flew the Great Lakes for my aerobatic lesson and then I flew my Cherokee back to Deer Valley from Chandler. I logged the flight from Deer Valley to Chandler and back as one single flight (KDVT KCHD KDVT) and my aerobatic flight as one single flight. But I suppose I could of logged that as three separate flights.
 
For me, every time I shut down, it's a separate flight. If I just bounce around I just write PDK-PDK and TnG CTJ. But if I get some fuel at CTJ, it's PDK-CTJ and then CTJ-PDK.
 
mtuomi said:
For me, every time I shut down, it's a separate flight. If I just bounce around I just write PDK-PDK and TnG CTJ. But if I get some fuel at CTJ, it's PDK-CTJ and then CTJ-PDK.
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Yea that's probabaly a good way to do it...otherwise my logbook will just be KDVT KDVT all the time lol
 
I use MyFlightBook and fill in the property "cross-country less than 50nm" for the shorter flights. That way my cross country time is all countable toward ratings and certificates but I have a record of other cross country time that doesn't qualify for those ratings and certificates.
 
CC268 said:
Kind of a silly question but at what point do you log something as two separate flights in your logbook? For instance last Sunday I flew from Deer Valley to Chandler...I then flew the Great Lakes for my aerobatic lesson and then I flew my Cherokee back to Deer Valley from Chandler. I logged the flight from Deer Valley to Chandler and back as one single flight (KDVT KCHD KDVT) and my aerobatic flight as one single flight. But I suppose I could of logged that as three separate flights.
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I would have likely logged the flights the way you did, but the way you proposed is fine too. As a broad generalization, I log an entire day's worth of flying on one line unless I've flown multiple types that day.

As far as how to log cross country goes, some logbooks have two XC columns. One for all XC and one for over 50 miles. The main advantage I see to logging all XC would be if you have intentions of trying to meet 135 minimums as quick as possible. If that is not a concern then it is probably easiest to total for advanced ratings if you only log the trips over 50 miles.
 
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CC268 said:
Kind of a silly question but at what point do you log something as two separate flights in your logbook? For instance last Sunday I flew from Deer Valley to Chandler...I then flew the Great Lakes for my aerobatic lesson and then I flew my Cherokee back to Deer Valley from Chandler. I logged the flight from Deer Valley to Chandler and back as one single flight (KDVT KCHD KDVT) and my aerobatic flight as one single flight. But I suppose I could of logged that as three separate flights.
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Doesn't really matter that much. The FAA has pretty much said what is considered a single flight is mostly up to the pilot and "a new day or delay" (if I recall the words correctly) doesn't necessarily terminate a cross country.

At what point do you break them up? There are probably some "let's not be ridiculous" limitations on treating it as one. I remember someone tongue-in-cheek saying he considered all of his flying just one long cross country flight. But other than that, when you feel like it.

Personally, when the purpose of the flight in that n-number changes, I log it separately and not as part of the xc. For example, if I fly cross country to visit a friend, then take him for a ride, bring him back and then fly home, I consider the local flight to not be part of the cross country and will log it separately.
 
I think a little common sense goes a long way in deciding when one "flight" ends and a new one begins. When you drive from San Francisco to Seattle, you tell people that's what you did even if you stopped for gas in Portland. But if you spent a week in Portland you wouldn't just say you drove to Seattle. If you land 20 times at different airports on a trip, for whatever reason, but didn't stop to smell the roses, you would probably call it one flight. But if you land once and go to the beach all afternoon before continuing on, then maybe that counts as two flights.

Ultimately, this only matters for a small handful of things, mainly logging cross country time toward a rating. If you count 5 hours of touch and goes in the pattern at a single airport as cross country time by bundling it with a flight you took two days earlier, then you may find yourself in trouble. If you count all the local flights you made for the whole year on one line of your logbook, though, who is going to care?
 
iamtheari said:
I think a little common sense goes a long way in deciding when one "flight" ends and a new one begins. When you drive from San Francisco to Seattle, you tell people that's what you did even if you stopped for gas in Portland. But if you spent a week in Portland you wouldn't just say you drove to Seattle. If you land 20 times at different airports on a trip, for whatever reason, but didn't stop to smell the roses, you would probably call it one flight. But if you land once and go to the beach all afternoon before continuing on, then maybe that counts as two flights.
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In all of the internet posts on various forums about this topic, this post is the most clear explanation of how to view logbook entries that I've ever read.

At least for "hobby" pilots and probably even many "working" pilots, this common sense approach is perfect. It's pretty much what I've settled on in my own logbook. I've always thought of it as "I'll start a new line when the purpose of the flight changes".
 
Personally, I don't log the flight as a cross country unless it's greater than 50 miles
 
Depends on what your future may hold. As already stated, that XC time less than 50 may become valuable if you want to qualify yourself for 135 operations.

I logged all XC as XC. The flights that qualified for XC for the purpose of obtaining a license I used a different color ink or highlighter on the XC column and included a note in the comments i.e. "This flight conducted in accordance with 61.129 (a)(3)(iii)". Made it really easy to pick out the correct log entry when asked where is your daytime xc, etc., etc., etc..
 
jaybee said:
Depends on what your future may hold. As already stated, that XC time less than 50 may become valuable if you want to qualify yourself for 135 operations.

I logged all XC as XC. The flights that qualified for XC for the purpose of obtaining a license I used a different color ink or highlighter on the XC column and included a note in the comments i.e. "This flight conducted in accordance with 61.129 (a)(3)(iii)". Made it really easy to pick out the correct log entry when asked where is your daytime xc, etc., etc., etc..
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I wish ForeFlight had a separate column like that...
 
Anyone know if MyFlightBook has a way to keep track of all cross country flights and only those over 50NM? I'm an engineer right now, but I have thought about a career change so it may be good for me to log all for the sake of Part 135 operations.

EDIT: answered my own question...looks like you can specify cross country flights less than 50NM...I just don't want to move all my records over from ForeFlight...ahhhh
 
I don't know about My Flight Book but MCC pilot log for example will transpose all your records for you. So I would think that MFB might have that capability?
 
Gotta say ForeFlight's Pilot Support Team is pretty awesome...sent them email and 10 minutes later they responded:

"Thanks for the email and for the feature request. I have passed the request on to the Product Management team for their consideration.

We do have a way to distinguish between the two cross-country times for record-keeping purposes. I use it myself. You can create a custom field. You can name it something like "XC50plus", or anything you want to name it. To do so you can go to More > Logbook > Settings > Configure Fields > Add Custom Field.

And then in every entry where you want to record cross country time in excess of 50 miles you can record the time in that column."

Didn't realize that! I will give it a shot.
 
So the only concern I see here is that if I log all cross country time in the supplied ForeFlight category it will all show up in the 8710 report regardless if it was less than or greater than 50NM. Is this a bad thing? Ideally I guess you would really only want cross country time (over 50NM) showing up in the 8710 report, correct?

I can just export it to Excel and then add up the cross countries that have the custom "XC 50 Plus" tag assigned to them - that would be worst case.
 
CC268 said:
So the only concern I see here is that if I log all cross country time in the supplied ForeFlight category it will all show up in the 8710 report regardless if it was less than or greater than 50NM. Is this a bad thing? Ideally I guess you would really only want cross country time (over 50NM) showing up in the 8710 report, correct?

I can just export it to Excel and then add up the cross countries that have the custom "XC 50 Plus" tag assigned to them - that would be worst case.
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Yes. In furtherance of a rating, cross country time is >50 miles.
 
jordane93 said:
Yes. In furtherance of a rating, cross country time is >50 miles.
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Yea so I think here is what I will do:

-only record time in the ForeFlight Cross Country section if it is over 50NM. I can add a custom tag "XC ALL" (or something like that) to record EVERY cross country regardless of whether it is over 50NM. That way my 8710 report is only picking up the >50NM cross countries, but i still have a way to tally up ALL cross country time.

Woo hoo!
 
Pinging @EricBe if he wishes to comment on what is possible with MFB.
 
Apologies @AggieMike88 for the late reply. I'm going to start with a bit of a weasel answer and say that, from a logbook perspective "Cross-country time is that time which you log in the cross-country time field". Which may not be a helpful answer, but unfortunately is the only truly correct answer. See 61.1, but there are actually a whole bunch of thresholds.

But at a more pragmatic level, "Cross-country" has a number of different definitions/thresholds, and below is how I support them in MyFlightbook:
a) The strict definition of cross-country is anything that leaves the vicinity of the airport. But since that's not generally useful, people don't log it. For this reason, on MyFlightbook, I have the notion of a "local" flight and a "non-local" flight. A local flight simply has a single airport in the route (i.e., you just did pattern work). A non-local flight has 2 or more airports in the route. (Imperfect definition - you could go KXYZ-KXYZ and it would be treated as non-local, but it works out pretty well). So if you want to know "how much cross-country time do I have" (as distinct from "how much cross-country time have I logged") you can answer that.
b) Various ratings require a cross-country flight beyond a certain threshold distance (again, see 61.1 and other places). In MyFlightbook's rating-progress computations, to see if you've met this requirement, I look for two things: (1) some non-zero value in the cross-country time field, indicating that *you* thought it was cross-country, and (2) the requisite distance between airports when I look at the route of flight. The latter means that I actually look up the latitude/longitude of each airport in the Route field and compute the distance for each segment to see if the requirements of the rating (e.g., "150nm total distance with at least one leg 50nm from the departure airport") are met.
c) The mobile apps will also auto-fill the Cross-Country time field from the Total Time field if (1) Total time is being autofilled, (2) autodetection of takeoffs/landings is on, and (3) the flight route contains at least 50nm between a pair of airports, since 50nm seems to be a "universal" threshold (i.e., if you went 50nm, then there is no definition of cross-country that you haven't met.)
 
Oh, and I forgot (d): I also have properties for explicitly recording cross-country < 25nm, <50nm, and >50nm, if you care to categorize your cross-country time that way. But these are for informational purposes only; the ratings progress computations are always looking at actual distance, and your overall cross-country total is whatever you've logged as cross-country time.
 
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