X-Country in PTR

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karmutzen
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X-Country in PTR

Post by karmutzen »

Question for all you instructors out there: any time the student logs cross-country time (dual or solo), is it obligatory to mark S or D in Exercise 23 of the PTR. If so, from what reference?
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KissPlusOne
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Re: X-Country in PTR

Post by KissPlusOne »

I'm not quoting anything here, I'm just going off of what I know.

If you mark X/C time down, you need to support that time with evidence that you did indeed do a x/c. For example, the "airports visited" section should have more than just your home base in it. As well, you need to show in your exercises that you went over a x/c at least in some part. You'll notice in the ptr (at least the ones that I use), that exercise 23 is broken down into 4 sections, as found on the flight test. So, to mark down time without showing what you did would either indicate that you went out without planning, or you forgot to fill in the ptr.

The PTR/personal logbook is like a journal. Use it to remember what you've done so that when TC starts asking questions, you can back up your answers with evidence.
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digits_
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Re: X-Country in PTR

Post by digits_ »

KissPlusOne wrote: Tue Nov 19, 2019 10:15 am For example, the "airports visited" section should have more than just your home base in it.
That is not correct. You can do a cross country flight without visiting any other airports.
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photofly
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Re: X-Country in PTR

Post by photofly »

It would make sense, if you do, to write in the PTR the point or points to which you were navigating, even if they weren't airports, or you didn't land there.

It's hard to see how you can claim cross-country time without navigating *to* somewhere, so it's a reasonable expectation to write down where that somewhere is.
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digits_
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Re: X-Country in PTR

Post by digits_ »

photofly wrote: Tue Nov 19, 2019 10:45 am It would make sense, if you do, to write in the PTR the point or points to which you were navigating, even if they weren't airports, or you didn't land there.

It's hard to see how you can claim cross-country time without navigating *to* somewhere, so it's a reasonable expectation to write down where that somewhere is.
Unless we were navigating to airports, I've never written that down.

If you can fly away from the airport for an hour, and find your way back, that would indicate you can navigate.

I liked giving square or triangle routes, with leg lengths depending on the student's skill. It would be quite hard, if not impossible, to describe all the waypoints. You could add GPS coordinates to remove all ambiguity, but really, who cares... TC either trusts the information in the PTR, or it doesn't. I can't prove we did an hour of steep turns, slow flight or forced landings either.
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Re: X-Country in PTR

Post by photofly »

Unless we were navigating to airports, I've never written that down.
But... if you were navigating, where were you navigating to? Or did you only want to write down the trip back as x-c time?


I can't prove we did an hour of steep turns, slow flight or forced landings either.
But to get a licence, you don't have to do an hour of steep turns, or slow flight. Generally I take your point, but in that case, why write anything down? "I have all the requirements for the PPL. I wrote down nothing at all, but trust me, I meet the requirements." There's a TO and a FROM column in the x-c section of the PTR. Doesn't that imply to you that it should be completed for x-c time?
If you can fly away from the airport for an hour, and find your way back, that would indicate you can navigate.
Well, not really. Navigating back along a course you just flew either "freestyle" or track-crawling isn't really much of a navigational skill demonstration.

Navigating involves getting from point A to point B. You have to know where point A is (not just "here") to demonstrate the navigational skills expected of you. If you're going to draw a line on a chart, it needs at least two points on it. So why not write them both down?

I'm pretty sure most APs would want to see the cross country FROM and TO columns in the PTR completed for all claimed x-c time, both dual and solo.
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digits_
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Re: X-Country in PTR

Post by digits_ »

photofly wrote: Tue Nov 19, 2019 12:32 pm
Unless we were navigating to airports, I've never written that down.
But... if you were navigating, where were you navigating to? Or did you only want to write down the trip back as x-c time?
Fly from airport A to tower B and fly back to land at A, fly from airport A to little town B, over little town C and back to airport A, fly from airport A to little town C over city D to airpot E and then back directly towards airport A. Depending on the skill of the student.

If you are teaching in an area with a limited supply of airports, you have to come up with your own "destinations".

Well, not really. Navigating back along a course you just flew either "freestyle" or track-crawling isn't really much of a navigational skill demonstration.
To be honest, if all licensed pilots could do this without GPS, the world would be a safer place.

I'm pretty sure most APs would want to see the cross country FROM and TO columns in the PTR completed for all claimed x-c time, both dual and solo.
I haven't had any trouble with it, but then again the AP we used was linked to the school, so there was never any doubt the student actually did cross countries. The PTR is not there to meet any weird requriements the AP might have. If that's your concern, apply directly to TC.
If you log XX hours cross country, that should be all the proof the AP needs. If your cross country didn't involve landing at point A or B, it would be weird to log that. I would even call it fraudulent, as you did not land on the TO/FROM waypoint. Do you log every waypoint on a cross country? I doubt you do. What if you simply overfly the "destination" airport?

Wasn't there a topic here a while ago where a student got into trouble for filling out the TO/FROM column on navigation flights when he didn't actually land there?

Look at it from this point: do you consider time on a diversion exercise -where you actually fly the full diversion-, cross country time? If so, do you log the exact location where the diversion started? If it's not required, why log it? Nothing wrong with loggin extra stuff, just don't tell people it is required.
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Re: X-Country in PTR

Post by photofly »

digits_ wrote: Tue Nov 19, 2019 2:06 pm Fly from airport A to tower B and fly back to land at A, fly from airport A to little town B, over little town C and back to airport A, fly from airport A to little town C over city D to airpot E and then back directly towards airport A. Depending on the skill of the student.
That doesn't sound a lot like the kind of navigation I believe that TC is hoping you'll do, which in my interpretation is something along the lines of the flight test requirement "to an assigned destination at least 2 hours cruising range distance in the aeroplane being used for the flight test."

Hopefully, getting to little town B requires long enough in a straight line to require a track correction within 15 minutes, and the calculation of a revised ground speed and ETA, then long enough to determine if those corrections were made correctly. I'm not sure that if there are five different destinations in one flight, some of which are being visited more than once, that the legs are long enough to count as anything other than track crawling. If I "navigate" to the water tower, then the big hill, then the gravel pit, then the top of the big lake, and back to the water tower, then home, that's not really what they have in mind...
The PTR is not there to meet any weird requriements the AP might have.
Indeed. The PTR is there to meet the weird requirements of Transport Canada. The TO and FROM columns aren't there for giggles.
Look at it from this point: do you consider time on a diversion exercise -where you actually fly the full diversion-, cross country time? If so, do you log the exact location where the diversion started? If it's not required, why log it? Nothing wrong with loggin extra stuff, just don't tell people it is required.
I have never once considered that the time on a brief diversion should count towards the x-c requirements. It has always been my understanding that the three hours dual and five hours solo cross country time requirements for the PPL have to be met by proper prior planned flights to real destinations. Perhaps I'm out to lunch on that. But I don't think so.
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Re: X-Country in PTR

Post by digits_ »

photofly wrote: Tue Nov 19, 2019 3:07 pm
digits_ wrote: Tue Nov 19, 2019 2:06 pm Fly from airport A to tower B and fly back to land at A, fly from airport A to little town B, over little town C and back to airport A, fly from airport A to little town C over city D to airpot E and then back directly towards airport A. Depending on the skill of the student.
That doesn't sound a lot like the kind of navigation I believe that TC is hoping you'll do, which in my interpretation is something along the lines of the flight test requirement "to an assigned destination at least 2 hours cruising range distance in the aeroplane being used for the flight test."

Hopefully, getting to little town B requires long enough in a straight line to require a track correction within 15 minutes, and the calculation of a revised ground speed and ETA, then long enough to determine if those corrections were made correctly. I'm not sure that if there are five different destinations in one flight, some of which are being visited more than once, that the legs are long enough to count as anything other than track crawling. If I "navigate" to the water tower, then the big hill, then the gravel pit, then the top of the big lake, and back to the water tower, then home, that's not really what they have in mind...
My examples were 3 separate flights, not 15 minutes apart but at legs of about half an hour to 45 minutes. But I can see how it might have been confusing.

The PTR is not there to meet any weird requriements the AP might have.
Indeed. The PTR is there to meet the weird requirements of Transport Canada. The TO and FROM columns aren't there for giggles.
I never said they were there for giggles. Merely that I think only airports where you land should be filled out there.
Look at it from this point: do you consider time on a diversion exercise -where you actually fly the full diversion-, cross country time? If so, do you log the exact location where the diversion started? If it's not required, why log it? Nothing wrong with loggin extra stuff, just don't tell people it is required.
I have never once considered that the time on a brief diversion should count towards the x-c requirements. It has always been my understanding that the three hours dual and five hours solo cross country time requirements for the PPL have to be met by proper prior planned flights to real destinations. Perhaps I'm out to lunch on that. But I don't think so.
I specifically stated a diversion exercise where you fly the full diversion, not a quick 5 minute flight. If a student flight plans A to B, which is an hour flight, and half way there A and B have simulated bad weather so they need to fly 45 minutes to C, then I will definitely count that as cross country time.

Then again, I usually spend way more than the bare minimum on cross country and diversion exercises, which might explain why nobody has looked into it too much in detail. But I can say I've never filled out a TO/FROM column with anything orther than an airport I've landed at...
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Re: X-Country in PTR

Post by photofly »

digits_ wrote: Tue Nov 19, 2019 3:29 pm
I never said they were there for giggles. Merely that I think only airports where you land should be filled out there.
I don't think that's an unsupportable conclusion, but *why* do you think that?
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Re: X-Country in PTR

Post by digits_ »

photofly wrote: Tue Nov 19, 2019 4:06 pm
digits_ wrote: Tue Nov 19, 2019 3:29 pm
I never said they were there for giggles. Merely that I think only airports where you land should be filled out there.
I don't think that's an unsupportable conclusion, but *why* do you think that?
Because a TO and FROM column is a very basic column in pretty much any pilot logbook. A flight is very often defined by its TO and FROM airport. I find it only logical that such reasoning would transfer to the PTR. I have no reason to believe otherwise.

But it's probably one of those things, where if you don't agree, there is very little that will convince you otherwise...
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Re: X-Country in PTR

Post by photofly »

None of my logbooks have a TO or a FROM column, just a ROUTE column. If I fly over another airport without landing, I often record it in the ROUTE. At least I think I do. I don't need to be convinced, but one learns the most from people with different opinions.
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Re: X-Country in PTR

Post by 7ECA »

I recall instructors saying one must have exercises listed for each flight in the PTR, others who said something along the lines of "who gives a...", and still others who said as long as you've got one mark for each exercise over the course of the logged flights that's plenty.
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Re: X-Country in PTR

Post by Squaretail »

7ECA wrote: Wed Nov 20, 2019 7:00 pm I recall instructors saying one must have exercises listed for each flight in the PTR, others who said something along the lines of "who gives a...", and still others who said as long as you've got one mark for each exercise over the course of the logged flights that's plenty.
One would wonder if a flight had apparently no exercises that took place during it why it would warrant needing to be in a PTR in the first place. For the record, as an AP, TC licensing sure seemed to "give a ...". If your instructor is too lazy to write a few P, D or S in your PTR, get a different instructor.
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Re: X-Country in PTR

Post by 7ECA »

Squaretail wrote: Thu Nov 21, 2019 10:13 am One would wonder if a flight had apparently no exercises that took place during it why it would warrant needing to be in a PTR in the first place. For the record, as an AP, TC licensing sure seemed to "give a ..."
In the end though, it becomes an exercise in pushing paper. Sure, on that time building cross country to Sumspot you really did nothing other than fly there have lunch and go home - but, in the PTR you S'd takeoff, departure procedure, enroute procedure, approach, landing, etc... :rolleyes:
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Re: X-Country in PTR

Post by CpnCrunch »

The PTR has a Route column, which is split into TO and FROM. You can just write the route across the to/from columns. Not really rocket science.

You probably do want that filled in, in case you change schools and/or have to send your PTR to TC. What's the point in having it if you're not going to bother filling it in properly?
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Re: X-Country in PTR

Post by photofly »

7ECA wrote: Thu Nov 21, 2019 11:35 am
Squaretail wrote: Thu Nov 21, 2019 10:13 am One would wonder if a flight had apparently no exercises that took place during it why it would warrant needing to be in a PTR in the first place. For the record, as an AP, TC licensing sure seemed to "give a ..."
In the end though, it becomes an exercise in pushing paper. Sure, on that time building cross country to Sumspot you really did nothing other than fly there have lunch and go home - but, in the PTR you S'd takeoff, departure procedure, enroute procedure, approach, landing, etc... :rolleyes:
Well if you only flew there for lunch, and if you didn’t do a departure procedure, enroute procedure, etc., then you shouldn’t be claiming it as x-c time towards the rating or licence.

When I said nobody gives a **** what I meant was not that record keeping isn’t important. It is. But it’s much less important than learning the skills. We don’t keep records only because they’re obligatory and skip them when they’re not, referencing the language of the op. We keep records because they bear witness to what we studied and what we taught and learned.
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Re: X-Country in PTR

Post by Squaretail »

7ECA wrote: Thu Nov 21, 2019 11:35 am
In the end though, it becomes an exercise in pushing paper. Sure, on that time building cross country to Sumspot you really did nothing other than fly there have lunch and go home - but, in the PTR you S'd takeoff, departure procedure, enroute procedure, approach, landing, etc... :rolleyes:
Your argument here though is that its worth the small effort for the instructor to enter the flight in the PTR, but clearly too onerous to - while that same PTR is open in front of them - to fill in a few columns with some "S".
photofly wrote:When I said nobody gives a ****
Technically speaking, you didn't say that here. But I agree with your sentiment that followed. Personally I don't see entries in the PTR as that difficult, or demanding of a task of the instructor. If your instructor won't do it for whatever reasons or however their personal feelings about it, save yourself some time and find another one.
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Re: X-Country in PTR

Post by OldInstructor »

People come at this from a variety of perspectives. The PTR is a record of your training and a document to pass comments regarding next steps as well as confirming you have met TC’s licensing requirements. One trusts that before starting your first dual cross country you have been provided with map reading, departure procedures and depending on your geographic area even operations at other airports. All of these are acceptable as exercise 23 entries. The PTR has been used in legal proceeding to either show a lack of instruction or prove it was accomplished. What is in the PTR may and likely does not match the pilot logbook particularly for private and Commercial training.
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