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I flew one leg of a cross country, landed, parked, and turned off my engine. I flew the same plane home an hour later.

Are these two separate flights and should be logged as such, or can they be logged together on one line?

Is there any rule that states how it should be logged?

Ryan Mortensen
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Anthony
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  • Welcome to aviation.SE! Which country or regulations are you asking about? – Pondlife Aug 20 '20 at 22:59
  • If your question is about the US then it may be answered here. – Pondlife Aug 20 '20 at 23:34
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    The question this is marked as a dupe of asks if stopping short of 50NM before continuing would make the flight over 50NM in total become “not XC”. This question asks if multiple legs with shutdowns in between need to be logged on multiple lines. Not the same at all. – Ryan Mortensen Aug 21 '20 at 23:03

2 Answers2

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There are no hard and fast rules in the US about how and when to break up a flight like this, so do what makes the most sense to you.

In the military I would generally log individual sorties on different lines because there were varied mission codes, and sometimes we switched crews. However, on a multi leg cross country I would log it all on a single line. (As long as the multiple legs occurred on the same day.)

Michael Hall
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  • Aside from personal logs, in Canada there is a Journey Log that stays with the airplane where you enter each flight separately with dep/dest air time and flight time etc. I've always wondered how you track hours on a US ac when the only logs for the airplane are the tech logs. – John K Aug 21 '20 at 02:51
  • @JohnK For GA piston airplanes, the maintenance logs use tach time. AD compliance and 100 hour inspections are based on tach time. I don’t know how they do it in the turbine world. Rental airplanes sometimes have a Hobbes meter and I sometimes see Hobbes time in the logbooks but it is just there for completeness/cross checking. – JScarry Aug 21 '20 at 20:54
  • We have a Hobbs in the Caravan. – Michael Hall Aug 21 '20 at 20:57
  • @JScarry as it happens when I make Journey Log entries for my plane, I don't record the actual clock time, I use the tach reading for the air time (compliance requirements are also based on air time, so it works out the same in the end) and add a tenth for the flight time. If I had a Hobbs, I'd use it for the flight time. Years ago the Journey Log format included up and down clock times you were supposed to record, but it was simplified and now it's just air time and flight time and total air time. The best feature of the Journey Log is when you buy an airplane you know where it's been. – John K Aug 22 '20 at 00:09
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Is there any rule that states how it should be logged?

No, there isn't, not specifically regarding exiting the aircraft at your destination and getting back in later that day.

You can log it on one line and simply enter in the remarks, "broke for lunch at destination", or some similar comment if you want to remember what you actually did.

No one will mind whether you choose to log your return separately. Personally, I would use one line simply for less writing.

Ryan Mortensen
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