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5 Answers

Simplest Manner of Completing Both Night & Day 100 NM Dual XC CPL Requirement in one Single Excursion

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Commercial Pilot, FAA Regulations, Flight Instructor, Instrument Rating, Student Pilot

 

I’m seeking an optimal way to fulfill the Commercial requirement for completing both a day as well as night 100NM Dual XC trip.

What is the cleanest, simplest, most non-controversial way for a Private Pilot to plan a SINGLE flight excursion that can fulfill both the Day and the Night VFR Dual 100 NM XC Dual requirement ?

Assume Airport AAA is 110 NM distant from Airport BBB. Assume I fly 110 NM from AAA to BBB with my CFI under daylight conditions.  We have dinner at the BBB Airport Restaurant. The sun has now set and it is night, and way beyond even Civil Twilight. I hop back into the plane with my CFI and now, under night conditions, complete another Dual XC from BBB back to AAA, the airport of origin.

Would this allow me to properly fulfill both Day & Night VFR Dual >100 NM XC requirements for the Commercial certificate in a single excursion ? Any “gotchyas” to look out for ?

 

 

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5 Answers



  1. Russ Roslewski on Nov 04, 2021

    There aren’t any “gotchas”, the regulations on this one are pretty clearly spelled out. There is no problem with your plan, and I do it all the time.

    You did miss one requirement, though, that the day flight and the night flight each need to take 2+ hours. If your dinner airport is 110 nm away, that isn’t 2 hours in most training airplanes (like a 172). But you also don’t have to go directly there – I usually include a few diversions in there and maybe a few maneuvers (like emergency descents, or emergency landings) and an instrument approach to round out the time.

    Also, in your question you’ve added a condition that doesn’t exist. The flights do not have to be done VFR. They used to, but that changed a while back – maybe 10 years? Read the wording in 61.129 carefully, you’ll see what I mean.

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  2. Gary Moore on Nov 07, 2021

    Just another thought – while I’m all for being efficient and reducing costs of training – is this really the best strategy for optimal learning. These aren’t intended to simply be tasks we check off as complete and then we’re done.

    The intent is to build skill and experience. Personally, these are two that I’d keep separate. Their focus and intention are not necessarily identical. I believe there is a lot fo value in doing them on their own 🙂

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  3. Mark Kolber on Nov 08, 2021

    Yes, Gary, I think it is optimal. You take a relatively significant 2 hour day flight with an instructor like Russ who tosses in diversions and other tasks. You are now at a more remote location, further from your home base than you might otherwise be if you went out and back in those same 2 hours. And, while perhaps a bit tired, you need to do the final planning and briefing for a night flight home.

    Not only “optimal” but practical. That 4+ hour flight day with a meal break in the middle mostly used to plan the next “leg” sounds a bit more like the kind of flights commercial pilots do in real life than two separate flights both starting in familiar territory.

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  4. Russ Roslewski on Nov 08, 2021

    Gary, I don’t understand what you mean by “Their focus and intention are not necessarily identical.” Other than the difference between day and night, they are essentially just “XC experience-building flights”, and so I don’t see any real difference in focus or intention that isn’t already covered by doing one flight in the day and one at night.

    In addition, not only is it more efficient to do them in one “trip”, it’s far more like a “real” commercial pilot flight. You fly somewhere during the day, you sit around a while, and come back at night. Heck, I just did exactly that on Saturday. Since you’re there for a while, you have think about changing weather, flight planning while away from home, parking, FBO, linemen, chocks, fees, possibly transportation, on and on just like commercial pilots do every day.

    It doesn’t have to just be dinner, either, of course. You and the CFI can go to a museum. Or bring your spouses along and tour the city. Or go to a football game. Or whatever. Fly up in the morning and come back at night – NOW you may even start to see the effects of fatigue and other pressures.

    You can’t get much better training than that.

    Compare that to the typical flight school/rental airplane method, which is “fly during the day to an airport 101 nm away, do a touch-and-go, and come back, then do the same kind of thing again at night”.

    The applicant is going to rent the airplane for 4 hours either way. Why not use it to stretch their legs and get some “real” experience?

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  5. PedroThePilot on Nov 14, 2021

    I want to thank everyone for the great answers.

    Russ noted ” If your dinner airport is 110 nm away, that isn’t 2 hours in most training airplanes (like a 172). ”

    Amen to that. So in the end what will probably work out best for me is to keep the day and night flight separated and as two distinct flight excursions.

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