logging instrument approach question

[legaleagle]

Currency and logging time are different!!!!

The real legal deal.......

As a future aviation attorney who will defend you guys next year, and who worked for FAA legal for 9 months in Boston, and who brought the first aviation law class to our law school (recruiting the FAA Regional Counsel as the professor), and has flown to the point of becoming an instrument pilot who will be commercial in two weeks (248 hours), you cannot log instrument hours unless you are in IMC. IMC includes if you are VFR on top, because you have no reference to a "ground" horizon. Thus, you can log instrument time even though conditions in and around you are VMC. Shooting approaches for currency is a different story. You can log approaches shot in VMC, and you simply keep track of the number and type ( I do this by describing approach ILS 29-BED, and then logging the number of approaches in one of the blank fields over to the right of the logbook) in order to maintain currency. But, to clarify...instrument hours can only accrue when flying in IMC conditions, whether night or day. The caveat to this is if you are in and out of the clouds for a portion, or all of your ride, no one is going to actually log .01 hours here, and .01 hours there. So, if you are in and out of the clouds for the most of your ride, or a significant portion of some of your ride, than log that as IFR time. i.e. two hour flight in VMC, but for .4 hours you can see the ground intermittently, but you are at flight level where you are riding in a bunch of little puffies and keep going in and out, than log the .4 as actual.....that is acceptable by most FAA examiners and DE's that I know.....

email me at [email protected] if you have questions.

 

[legaleagle]

Approaches /mins/currency

You should shoot the entire approach. The currency does not state you have to fly 6 half approaches or 6 incomplete approaches. However, as in real life, you can go missed for a variety of reasons prior to the MDA or DH. You might have a mechanical issue, you might be hot on the approach, get a full deflection on the needle, etc. So, as the missed approach instructions to a holding point would be the final phase of the approach, this would complete the approach even if you go missed. But, aside from a good reason to go missed, other than your simple desire to break it off, you should go down to mins in VMC, and of course in IMC you are going to continue down to mins if you don't break out, so it is not an issue.

 

[bobbysamd]

General Counsel opinions

As a future aviation attorney who will defend you guys next year, and who worked for FAA legal for 9 months in Boston, and who brought the first aviation law class to our law school (recruiting the FAA Regional Counsel as the professor) . . .

Nice to see your responses.

On a related matter, what precedential value, if any, do General Counsel opinions carry in enforcement procedings? Are these opinions black-letter law or applicable only to each individual fact pattern for which they're sought (cf. IRS Private-Letter rulings)?

Thanks. Good luck with your Commercial practical and the bar.

 

[legaleagle]

The General Counsel opinions ...

My experience was that when the Gen Counsel made a statement regarding an issue, like duty hours (wasn't that a fun one), it is adhered to by all regional offices as the bible. An example would be after 9/11 when the sanctions handed down for P airspace violations went to 180 days, even for 1st time offenders who wandered in there unbeknownst to them, or ones who check ed the NOTAMS, but just were a little off course. The regional offices, who actually had to prosecute these really hated to do it, because they were the ones who dealt with the people face to face, and a lot of the guys had done it without harm or foul. But, the Gen counsel explicitly handed down that sanction mandate. As for precedential value, the only thing that matters if your case goes to trial is NTSB decisions and ALJ decisions. Gen Counsel statements on a particular matter are not binding unless they are an interpretation of an existing reg. As he is not the regulatory law creator, he can recommend, and the regs can then be changed. It's kind of like the ABA or Judicial College recommendig changes to the Fed. Evidenciary Rules. Until they are made into law, they have no binding effect. At the FAA, the process goes: informal conference, sanction handed out, appeal to ALJ, then to NTSB Board ct, then Fed District Court, etc.

 

[legaleagle]

Bobbysamd--Thanks!

Thank you for the words of encouragement! I love reading your posts all the time! Did I hear correctly that you are trying to get back into flying? Sweet! Good Luck!

Christopher

 

[midlifeflyer]

Re: Currency and logging time are different!!!!

As a future aviation attorney <snip>
IMC includes if you are VFR on top, because you have no reference to a "ground" horizon. Thus, you can log instrument time even though conditions in and around you are VMC.

Wow! As a future aviation attorney, you'd better check your sources a little better. The FAA definition of "the actual instrument conditions" necessary for logging instrument time is the one I quoted above. Perhaps you have another source that says that anytime you fly without a visible horizon, it's IMC. I know a lot of mountain pilots who would love to log some extra IMC when the go down a canyon in a tilted valley when the daytime weather is CAVU.

Flying on top of a cloud deck is perfectly legal VFR for a non-instrument rated pilot, and every pilot who has done so can tell you that you don't need instruments to remain upright. It can be done quite easily without looking at the instruments any more than top cross-check them as you would during a severe clear flight.

 

[avbug]

Legaleagle,

One may log instrument time any time one is conducting flight by reference to instruments, in actual or simulated instrument conditions.

One need not be in IMC, which by definition involves instrument meteorological conditions. Flight over an unlighted landscape on a moonless night, flight between cloud layers with no discernable horizon, etc, all enable one to log instrument time even though one is VFR or VMC.

Further, one may log instrument time under simulated instrument conditions. Simulated instrument flight is equal in significance to actual instrument conditions, with respect to logging, and currency both.

 

[bigD]

Sigh...Avbug, I'm not sure why you're getting so upset over this. I'm not trying to be snide here. At your request, I went back and reread the entire thread, which will be the 4th time for me. midlifeflyer had a good post that seemed to sum everything up well, and here's an excerpt from the end of it...

The camp that says that the legal counsel didn't mean all the way in IMC (call them the "Rule of Reason" school) are essentially saying that "How much" is one of those undefined terms. Not everything is susceptible to precise definition. Try to thing of all of the scenarios and come out with a rule that covers every probably (let alone possible) approach scenario. How many pages did you use?

When Part 61 was revised in 1997, there was a proposal to write the rule so that, in order to count, approaches had to be flown to MDA or DA to count. They got a lot of comments, including one that said,

"One commenter suggests revising the definition to permit the pilot to terminate the approach prior to DH or MDA for safety reasons. Another commenter proposes to define "instrument approach" as " * * * an approach procedure defined in part 97 and conducted in accordance with that procedure or as directed by ATC to a point beyond an initial approach fix defined for that procedure." The commenter explains that this definition would allow for logging instrument approaches that require some portion of the published approach procedure to be followed in order for the pilot to establish visual references to the runway"

The FAA decided against the new requirement.

The emphasis by the bolded parts were placed there by me, and are the areas that seem contradictory to what you said. This is what's been making me unsure.

Anyway, I'll leave you alone from now on. Sorry to bother you with my question.

 

[legaleagle]

Avbug you are entirely right

I was in a hurry as I work in a law office right now. Had to write quickly. Anyway, when I said no reference to the horizon, my mind was thinking solely by reference to the instruments, which includes above a solid cloud deck, or even in intermittent clouds tha obscure the horizon, even if they allow you to see the ground below you from time to time. You can of course also log simulated time eith flight under a hood even in CAVU without clouds. Particularly with all of the time builders out there who are using safety pilots, the ability to log simulated time under the hood is very important. I appreciate your constructive help and correction to my earlier post.

 

[avbug]

Those comments do not carry the weight of the legal interpretation as already presented, which does address the matter clearly.