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Planning Cross Country flights after obtaining Private for IR and Comm

Asked by: 4009 views Commercial Pilot, Instrument Rating, Private Pilot

I should be ready for my Private checkride at the end of August. I am planning on doing the Instrument Rating after that and hopefully moving on to Commercial after that. I am not a career pilot and fly only for pleasure.

I was wondering if I should be giving any special consideration to how I fly cross countries after the Private. I know that they have to be in excess of 50NM to count towards the requirement for IR/Comm, but should I consider doing longer distances to meet the Comm requirement, seeing that I have to do 50 hours anyway?  

I just want to be sure that I don't just randomly fly 50 hours of short (excess of 50NM) cross countries only later to kick myself that I did not do, for instance, a 300NM with 250NM straight line while I had the opportunity.

 

 

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2 Answers



  1. Ash on Jun 23, 2014

    Andre,

    I would recommend that you fly with a safety pilot during your VFR cross-country flights (see 14 CFR 91.109 for details on safety pilots), that way you can log both simulated instrument time and cross-country time during your trips (you’re going to need 40 hours of instrument time along with the 50 hours of cross-country PIC time to meet the requirements of the IR). That’s a pretty good use of your flying dollars.

    As far as the “long solo cross-country” for your commercial license goes, you can do that at anytime once your a private pilot. Just remember that it does have to be solo (or with a CFI on board).

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  2. Russ Roslewski on Jun 23, 2014

    I would recommend NOT flying under the hood with a safety pilot until you’ve started IR training and have some instruction under the hood from a CFII. Too many bad habits can develop if you try to do it with no training. After some instructional time, though, your CFII can give you some tips and ideas on what types of things to work on during your XC flights. This can be very useful.

    You can get the Commercial “Long XC” done at any time. Yes it will count towards your 50 XC for the IR as well. And to add to Ash’s comment, yes it has to be solo, meaning no other person, pilot or not, on board – or with a CFI given the caveats in 61.129(a)(4).

    I also recommend that your work with your CFII during training to get some of that XC time knocked out concurrently. Though the FARs only require one 250-nm XC instructional flight for the IR, why not do more? You have to fly the time anyway, might as well make it count double – both for IR training and for XC experience. More practice working in the system too.

    I did this to great success with a student in the same situation. Once we got to flying approaches, we did them at airports 50 nm away instead of 20 or 30 nm away. Ended up saving him money in the long run.

    Good luck with your training!

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