CFI/DPE input on commercial requirement

[Sjohn116]

61.123… commercial requirements, namely the daytime cross country of 300nm with one airport at least 250nm away… as it’s written, it doesn’t explicitly say that one leg must be 250nm. I ask this because a champ can’t physically make 250nm before running out of fuel, even if the pilot’s bladder could.

hypothetically, in a champ, if I did legs of 130nm and 130nm and +40nm in one direction, like what you would expect flying to Oshkosh or Sun N Fun, would that meet the aforementioned requirement as its written in the CFR…?

 

[Bob Turner]

Yes, but you need to ask your DPE. Not all DPEs are proficient in rule interpretation. You do not want to argue . . .

 

[Tangogawd]

When I was sending students to DPE's, a decade ago, it was 250nm without a stop. Our school had a student get rejected and had to redo his long XC because he had indicated that he had done a touch and go at a small airport just 20 miles short of the the 250 mark

 

[JackC]

61.123… commercial requirements, namely the daytime cross country of 300nm with one airport at least 250nm away… as it’s written, it doesn’t explicitly say that one leg must be 250nm. I ask this because a champ can’t physically make 250nm before running out of fuel, even if the pilot’s bladder could.

hypothetically, in a champ, if I did legs of 130nm and 130nm and +40nm in one direction, like what you would expect flying to Oshkosh or Sun N Fun, would that meet the aforementioned requirement as its written in the CFR…?

It’s pretty clear

“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.”

So it’s 300 total and 250nm straight line from the first point you started from

You got point A, point B and point C (AT MINIMUM) as long as one of those points is >250nm from point A you’re good so long as your total miles also are over 300nm, remember you can have more than 3 points too

So if you wanted you could make 4 stops, 5 stops, you could fly a square and end up back home, you could just take a segment of a one way ferry flight, etc



I have learned from DPEs over the years that many got to be a DPE more based on who they know than what they know, you could ask their POI

 

[Sjohn116]

Thanks Jack, that’s how I interpreted the regs,