IFR questions

[alphaone]

I guess I should post this here...
I have about 32hrs of XC PIC. I will be doing my IFR soon, and I know I have to have the 40hrs of IFR conditions. When I do that, will I be able to log PIC time with my CFII and all doing the XC's? Should I keep buying XC time now or save my money?
Thanks guys...

 

[jrh]

will I be able to log PIC time with my CFII and all doing the XC's?

Yes. Now that you have your private license, it doesn't matter if you're receiving instruction or not, you still log the flight as PIC (assuming it's in a single-engine land airplane).

Should I keep buying XC time now or save my money?

It could go either way. On one hand, you can probably stop flying XCs on your own, fly some with your CFII, and you'll get your instrument ticket right at the minimum number of hours.

On the other hand, you're probably going to need to buy some time to reach 250 hours for your commercial license, so it's not like buying time is throwing money away. It's just a matter of buying it now or later. Even if you overestimate how much you'll need and fly past the 250 hour mark for your commercial, having extra cross country time will put you that much closer to the 500 hours needed for a Part 135 job.

Even more important than all that, I'm a huge believer in people flying a lot of solo cross countries early in their flight training. It builds knowledge, confidence, and proficiency like you wouldn't believe. I feel that dropping the extra money for those extra solo cross country hours will more than pay for itself in the increased proficiency you'll get as a pilot.

So here's my advice--if you're only going to fly back and forth over a boring, unchallenging, familiar, 51-mile-long route, just for the sake of racking up hours, you should save your money and start into your instrument training.

If you keep expanding your horizons, pushing your own comfort zone a little, like flying long distances, flying into busy airspace, flying into short strips, flying at night, whatever it is, always trying to experience as much as you can, then it's money well spent. Even if it's just taking friends along with you on XCs, learning how to keep pax safe and comfortable, it's money well spent.

 

[jawright]

I am doing instrument training now, and basically we do almost every flight as a XC under the hood.

 

[Windchill]

I guess I should post this here...
I have about 32hrs of XC PIC. I will be doing my IFR soon, and I know I have to have the 40hrs of IFR conditions. When I do that, will I be able to log PIC time with my CFII and all doing the XC's? Should I keep buying XC time now or save my money?

Part 61 you will need 50 hours Cross-Country PIC prior to the checkride. Part 61 requires 10 Cross-Country hours toward the IR rating, so there's no harm in taking a couple more trips to get your X-C PIC time up to 40 hours and letting the required 10 for the IR get you over the threshold. The 40 hours is for instrument time, simulated or actual.

Part 61
40 instrument, sim or actual
15 of which must be with an instructor ... 25 can be with a safety pilot
50 X-Country, 10 of which toward the IR

and the usual ... so many (3?) within 60 days for checkride prep, etc.

I am doing instrument training now, and basically we do almost every flight as a XC under the hood.

That's a good idea ... do hood work on basic attitude control, etc. for 50 nm, and land to log x-country.

 

[jawright]

That's a good idea ... do hood work on basic attitude control, etc. for 50 nm, and land to log x-country.

Don't forget shooting the approaches at the end. =) We usually throw a couple holds in there too. We also shoot a few different approaches at airports that are along the way home. It's cool because that way, you can cram a whole bunch of different skillz into one flight.

Before I started my instrument training, I also bought a 10 hr. block in a C-152 and just flew random VFR cross country trips. I definitely learned some stuff by doing that!

 

[mastermags]

If it comes down to buying time now or later, I would buy it later, so you can have more options when flying XC's. For example, when you get your IR, you can fly your cross countries solo or without an instructor under IFR. Currently you can only fly IFR with an instructor.

You might consider getting your Commercial VFR cross countries out of the way right now if you haven't already. Since there are two required VFR dual XC's, plus the long solo one, you might as well have them count towards your 50 hour IFR XC requirements. Of course it also depends on what kind of schedule your CFI develops for your training.

 

[DCApilot2006]

Remember if you are going to use the X-country time towards a certificate or rating, It NEEDS, MUST, NO QUESTIONS ASKED, be more than 50 NM's straight line distance.

I cannot stress how many times I see this get SCREWED up.