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5 Answers

Figuring out x-country time

Asked by: 2332 views FAA Regulations, General Aviation, Instrument Rating, Private Pilot

I am returning to flying as a private pilot after 8 years away from the sport. I am about to start my instrument rating planning after recently getting back up to speed and date. However I have not been able to find my log book and it’s presumed lost after several home moves. 

Ive done all the research on how to recreate my hours and was able to use my last medical to approximate my total hours (150). Now I’m reading the IFR requirements and I’m seeing 50 hours x-country requirements. Also I’m buying into a plane and would like accurate PIC hours calculated  for my insurance.

so....

1 - is it safe to say that the total hours I reported at my last medical are all PIC? Everything I’ve read says student pilots can log PIC even dual time.

2 - reading the private requirements I believe I needed 3 hours dual x-c, 3 hours at night (which I’m assuming was x-country), and 5 hours solo x-c. Based on this can I assume I have at least 11 hours x-country time from my private training? I’m thinking I can add a few more hours of x-c from the 80 hours it took me to get certified. 

 

Thanks!

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5 Answers



  1. KDS on Dec 22, 2018

    One record of your previous hours is contained in your FAA Form 8710-1’s. That is the form you completed before taking practical tests (check rides). You can receive a complete record of all your airman certification activity by calling Airman Registry at (866) 878-2498 or (405) 954-3261.

    You cannot “assume” anything. You can certify that you had X amount of this time or that time.

    I’ve heard many people give many versions of how you document such a thing. The reality is there is no one single rule. The most reasonable advice I heard was to create a starting document with all your flight time on it. Take that document to a notary and have them notarize you signature. It’s not a requirement, but I removes any question twenty years from now about whether you created that document twenty years earlier or yesterday.

    Here is what the FAA tells (orders) FAA Inspectors to do on the subject of lost logbooks:

    http://fsims.faa.gov/PICDetail.aspx?docId=8900.1,Vol.5,Ch1,Sec8

    One other piece of advice I can offer is to ask your CFI who would be doing your instrument practical test (check ride). Contact that person and tell them your situation and ask if what you have in mind doing would be acceptable in their eyes. Even if you’re doing what is right and you can show it to them carved in stone, if they think it’s wrong, you’re going to end up on the losing end of that situation.

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  2. Mark Kolber on Dec 23, 2018

    Echoing KDS, if you have lost your logbook and don’t have a *reliable* way of reconstructing it from aircraft rental receipts, locating your CFI to check his records for your dual time, and the like, the primary thing to rely on is the 8710 you filed when you applied for your private pilot certificate. That’s your baseline.

    I would not simply make things up. The Examiner who does your instrument checkride might well (and correctly) write it off as insufficient to prove your flight time. And, as KDS points out, your instrument CFII might not accept it either.

    Your 1st numbered question illustrates the problem in making it up:

    is it safe to say that the total hours I reported at my last medical are all PIC? Everything I’ve read says student pilots can log PIC even dual time.

    No, it is not safe to say all the time is PIC. A student pilot may not log dual as PIC. The only time a student pilot can log PIC is when solo. That’s right in FAR 61.51, the “Universal Rule of Logging Flight Time.”

    I’d be very interested in reading the “everything” you read saying you could. I suspect you read that a private pilot (after getting the certificate) may log all of the flight time he or she is the sole manipulator of the flight controls of an aircraft he or she is rated for as PIC time, even if it is also dual, but misunderstood it.

    What might be safe to say about the time on your medical is, if your last medical application was after you obtained your private certificate, the difference between it and the PIC time listed on your 8710 is also PIC time.

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  3. David R on Dec 23, 2018

    Thanks for the thoughtful answers. I went back and re-read the article I referenced and you are right I read it wrong. A pilot training for IFR rated for the type and class can log PIC in dual even without a medical. And a student pilot (no private yet) can log PIC when solo – which was new in the nineties and that threw me off.

    So for PIC calculating my hours will mean I need to figure all solo time when I was a student. BUT for x-country time that I’ll need for my IFR why can’t I use the private cert requirements as my minimum? To get a private cert I needed to do a certain amount of xcountry (3+3+5) or else the inspector wouldn’t have passed me.

    I wrote the faa and got my files from them but nothing showed a breakdown beyond the total time. I’ll check again and see if I got form 8710 and if not I’ll get it.

    Losing a log book sucks!

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  4. KDS on Dec 23, 2018

    Losing a logbook does indeed suck. The only consolation you have is that you’re in good company as many people have done that or something similar. Angry ex-wife walked off with it, roof caved in during ice storm and book was ruined, the list goes on and on.

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  5. Mark Kolber on Dec 23, 2018

    The instrument rating has two cross country requirements. One is a dual IFR cross country., which is done with your CFII, The other is 50 hours of cross country PIC. Your student solo cross country counts toward that.

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