What am I missing

TimRF79

TimRF79

Pre-takeoff checklist
Joined
Dec 10, 2017
Messages
352
Location
Houston, TX
Display Name
Display name:
Tim
For the commercial license the requirement is:
"One cross-country flight of not less than 300 nautical miles total distance, with landings at a minimum of three points, one of which is a straight-line distance of at least 250 nautical miles from the original departure point."
If one leg has to be a min of 250nm, would that not give me a minimum of 500nm total distance?

Leg one straight flight 250nm, leg two reverse course stop at airport around half way, leg three back to home base.
 
There's no requirement to end up where you started, and a single leg doesn't have to be 250 miles, one of the landing sites has to be 250 miles from the starting point. One 200 mile leg and two 50 mile legs in a straight line would fulfill the requirement.

Nauga,
delocated
 
While we are on the subject- has to be solo. Nobody in the plane and not with a CFI correct.

any reasoning behind the “solo” part???
 
Ahhh,
well, since this is a solo flight requirement I know see how in theory this makes sense.
From a practical aspect (since solo flight) not sure who would fly their plane solo from point a to point b and then... well i don't know...
 
I recently had my commercial check ride and asked my DPE the question about solo XC. I have plenty of XC’s that meet the requirement, but always had my wife or somebody else with me. I only have one XC I could find that met the requirements and in which I was truly alone in the aircraft. When I brought it up to him he didn’t care either way.
 
LanceS said:
I recently had my commercial check ride and asked my DPE the question about solo XC. I have plenty of XC’s that meet the requirement, but always had my wife or somebody else with me. I only have one XC I could find that met the requirements and in which I was truly alone in the aircraft. When I brought it up to him he didn’t care either way.
Click to expand...

I was in the same situation back when I was finishing my commercial. In all of my research, I probably couldn't find it now, I found an FAA case where a female pilot who was well known for always traveling with her dog everywhere had taken her dog on the the XC she used towards this requirement. The FAA actually took action against her certificate. Probably an outlier, but I didn't want to worry about it, so I took a day trip for fun, SOLO, and called it good. Always looking for an excuse to fly anyway right?
 
No way that a dog in a plane makes this a non-solo flight?
I mean what if i find a spider in my plane, is that no longer a solo flight then?

And i think it states it can be with a CFI, if you are PIC
 
benyflyguy said:
While we are on the subject- has to be solo. Nobody in the plane and not with a CFI correct.

any reasoning behind the “solo” part???
Click to expand...

Can't count a trip with your spouse (assuming she/he's not a pilot). What is behind that rule? Like the question - what in the world was the reasoning with that?
 
"
(4) Ten hours of solo flight time in a single engine airplane or 10 hours of flight time performing the duties of pilot in command in a single engine airplane with an authorized instructor on board (either of which may be credited towards the flight time requirement under paragraph (a)(2) of this section), on the areas of operation listed under § 61.127(b)(1) that include—

(i) One cross-country flight of not less than 300 nautical miles total distance, with landings at a minimum of three points, one of which is a straight-line distance of at least 250 nautical miles from the original departure point. However, if this requirement is being met in Hawaii, the longest segment need only have a straight-line distance of at least 150 nautical miles; and"
 
WDD said:
Can't count a trip with your spouse (assuming she/he's not a pilot). What is behind that rule? Like the question - what in the world was the reasoning with that?
Click to expand...
Nope, which really sucks, as I got plenty of flights that qualify, but none pure solo (can you say boring)
 
TimRF79 said:
Ahhh,
well, since this is a solo flight requirement I know see how in theory this makes sense.
From a practical aspect (since solo flight) not sure who would fly their plane solo from point a to point b and then... well i don't know...
Click to expand...
You could fly from San Diego to the Bay are alone, make a stop at SMO to meet a friend for lunch, fly to Camarillo to buy cheaper gas, then continue on to Oakland. Fly back the next day from Oakland with two of your friends in the plane

I actually like how this is written because it allows for someone who does a lot of flying and traveling via flying to organically accrue the requirements
 
My XC long solo was one-way.
I took a long trip with a friend who'd bought a one-way airfare to come visit me. I flew him back home again. Then I flew back to my home base alone, being sure to meet all the requirements (the stops, the total distance, the straight-line distance) along the way. I had logged the whole trip as one line in my logbook, but had made a note in the comments something like "from KAAA to KBBB with Joe, return trip solo" so that later I could point to this for my DPE as a record of meeting the requirements, and it was no problem.

I understand the rationale for the "solo means solo" thing. Just because a flying companion is a non-pilot, I still use them for cockpit resource management in all sorts of ways. (Don't you?) Hold this, put that away, refold this sectional, watch for traffic, discuss the weather, even just make chitchat to keep me alert and engaged. Solo is a different (and more commercial-pilot-y) headspace.

There is an exception in the regs where you can do it with a CFI, as long as the CFI *does nothing*, and you have to do the other Commercial solo stuff (like the night landings and whatnot) with a CFI in the same way; no mixing and matching. The use case for this exception is typically someone whose insurance won't let them fly a particular airplane solo.

If your logbook doesn't have a "solo" column, get into the habit to recording solo/pax in the comment line, so that you (and DPE's) can find the relevant stuff.
 
midwestpa24 said:
I found an FAA case where a female pilot who was well known for always traveling with her dog everywhere had taken her dog on the the XC she used towards this requirement. The FAA actually took action against her certificate.
Click to expand...

I wonder how the Faa could prove the dog assisted in navigation, or in any other way.?? :lol::lol:
 
TimRF79 said:
"
(4) Ten hours of solo flight time in a single engine airplane or 10 hours of flight time performing the duties of pilot in command in a single engine airplane with an authorized instructor on board (either of which may be credited towards the flight time requirement under paragraph (a)(2) of this section), on the areas of operation listed under § 61.127(b)(1) that include—
Click to expand...

:rolleyes2: knew I should have looked it up before answering :lol: Has that always been there or a recent addition?
 
TimRF79 said:
No way that a dog in a plane makes this a non-solo flight?
I mean what if i find a spider in my plane, is that no longer a solo flight then?
Click to expand...

Yeah... I shudder to think what will happen when the FAA finds out how much bacteria I take along with me on a typical flight. :)
 
nauga said:
There's no requirement to end up where you started, and a single leg doesn't have to be 250 miles, one of the landing sites has to be 250 miles from the starting point. One 200 mile leg and two 50 mile legs in a straight line would fulfill the requirement.
Click to expand...
Mine was a one-way flight of 550nm in a nearly straight line with the longest leg being 209nm.
 
Y’all could do it in a multi and have a CFI along who has to pretend that you’re alone... because FAA caved to insurance companies.

Hehehehe. :)
 
As mentioned, you don’t have to end at the same place you started. Here’s what I count for mine:

https://www.pilotsofamerica.com/community/threads/children-of-the-magenta-highlighter.120184/

The first day took me farther than halfway, easily enough to qualify for the commercial solo cross-country, had I not already accidentally done a few other flights that meet those requirements: at least 300 nm total distance (I did 478), landings at 3 points (I did 11), and one point of landing at least 250 nm from departure point (my farthest point from home was 270 nm away). I feel like this trip also met the spirit of the solo cross-country requirement, being done truly VFR.
Click to expand...

The route was S25 D49 5B4 D61 5H4 D24 8M6 1A2 4N4 4R6 KGWR D03. The longest leg was 78 nm. You can just do a ton of short cross-country flights in a row, not necessarily a long one. :)
 
Zeldman said:
I wonder how the Faa could prove the dog assisted in navigation, or in any other way.?? :lol::lol:
Click to expand...
They don’t have to. They only have to prove that it was an occupant and therefore the “solo” logging was fraudulent.

I’d be interested to know what triggered the investigation...
 
MauleSkinner said:
They don’t have to. They only have to prove that it was an occupant and therefore the “solo” logging was fraudulent.

I’d be interested to know what triggered the investigation...
Click to expand...

I don't recall exactly, or what the eventual outcome was. I wish I could find that again of course.

I knew when I was working on my commercial, I had many flights over 250 NM. I had flights of over 800 NM. But in no case did I have one that was 250 NM, three points of landing, and while solo.

Same with the 10 night landings at a towered airport while solo. I had hundreds if not thousands of landings, many a night, or at a towered airport, or solo. But in all my hundreds of hours of flying only found 1 night, solo landing at a towered airport. So off I went again to the nearest towered airport, over 50 NM away, for 9 more landings.
 
midwestpa24 said:
I don't recall exactly, or what the eventual outcome was. I wish I could find that again of course.

I knew when I was working on my commercial, I had many flights over 250 NM. I had flights of over 800 NM. But in no case did I have one that was 250 NM, three points of landing, and while solo.

Same with the 10 night landings at a towered airport while solo. I had hundreds if not thousands of landings, many a night, or at a towered airport, or solo. But in all my hundreds of hours of flying only found 1 night, solo landing at a towered airport. So off I went again to the nearest towered airport, over 50 NM away, for 9 more landings.
Click to expand...
For me, my long trips were often long enough and solo, but I didn’t stop enough times along the way.

And my night solo landings at towered airports were never accompanied by a night takeoff and flight in the pattern, because I was flying someplace with a tower at night to get there, not to fly around in circles.
 
iamtheari said:
For me, my long trips were often long enough and solo, but I didn’t stop enough times along the way.

And my night solo landings at towered airports were never accompanied by a night takeoff and flight in the pattern, because I was flying someplace with a tower at night to get there, not to fly around in circles.
Click to expand...

Not quite what the reg. says; "...with each landing involving a flight in the traffic pattern...." So, a landing with tower telling you to enter left downwind, or even enter right base, counts as a required landing, whereas a long straight-in final does not. And, the takeoff could be a straight out departure and still count. But, you're right, a night landing where you might spend the night and depart in the morning only counts for 1 of the 10 landings, not a takeoff.
 
I don't understand the night takeoff and landing requirement - why in the pattern and at a towered airport? I did my commercial training in the winter so it was easy to just go up at a reasonable hour after sunset and knock out 10 more. Then I had it as a single logbook entry so there would be no confusion during my checkride.
 
When re-basing from Ohio to Florida I stopped to visit family in Atlanta overnight. I usually made that trip with just one stop to stretch the legs and refuel but I decided, just to meet the purposes of this requirement, I would add a second stop along the way. I'm still WAY out from my commercial, but at least I know I knocked out the long solo cross country without a doubt!
 
Jim Carpenter said:
Not quite what the reg. says; "...with each landing involving a flight in the traffic pattern...." So, a landing with tower telling you to enter left downwind, or even enter right base, counts as a required landing, whereas a long straight-in final does not. And, the takeoff could be a straight out departure and still count. But, you're right, a night landing where you might spend the night and depart in the morning only counts for 1 of the 10 landings, not a takeoff.
Click to expand...
Good point on the pattern work. But without making a specific flight to do them all, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you how many of my towered night landings were straight-in and how many involved a downwind or base pattern entry. I ended up deciding to just make a special trip for it last year before the days got too long. It’s a stupid requirement but at least we all share the same rite of passage.
 
Jim Carpenter said:
Not quite what the reg. says; "...with each landing involving a flight in the traffic pattern...." So, a landing with tower telling you to enter left downwind, or even enter right base, counts as a required landing, whereas a long straight-in final does not..
Click to expand...
I’d argue that a straight in final is still “pattern”. In any event I’ve never logged the type of pattern I’ve flown when landing - that data just isn’t going to be there.
 
MauleSkinner said:
We are most certainly NOT random pilots...we are a very specific group that cannot agree on the answers!

:p
Click to expand...

We’re all above average and we each agree that each person knows that his / her answer is the one, only and complete answer. And we’re good looking, smart, and above all better at being humble. Random? Hah to that
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top