Logging flight time in Canada: PIC, co-pilot and cross-country

Early in my ab initio training, my instructor gave me a very quick lesson on filling in a logbook. After that I was on my own. I worked out what went where by reading the column headings and trying to make sense of them.

The headings don’t explain themselves, and the definitions behind them are spread across half a dozen Transport Canada documents. Here they are in one place, with notes on what I actually do on the line.

What counts as flight time in Canada?

The Canadian Aviation Regulations define it among their general definitions: “the time from the moment an aircraft first moves under its own power for the purpose of taking off until the moment it comes to rest at the end of the flight” (CAR 101.01).

Every other category in your log is a slice of that number. PIC, co-pilot, dual, night, cross-country and instrument time can each be part of a flight’s time. None of them can be more than it.

At the airline, I log what the aircraft records: off blocks (OUT) to on blocks (IN). On aircraft that recorded nothing, I made a habit of writing down the moment the aircraft first moved under its own power, because that’s where the definition starts the clock. One difference to know about: when a tug pushes you back, the aircraft is off blocks before it’s moving under its own power.

When do you log PIC time?

When you’re the pilot in charge. Transport Canada’s licence application guidance defines pilot-in-command as “the pilot having responsibility and authority for the operation and safety of the aircraft during flight time” (AC 401-002).

That settles two cases every student pilot meets:

• Your first solos are PIC time. A student pilot permit lets you act as pilot-in-command on training flights, under an instructor’s direction and supervision, by day VFR in Canada with no passengers (CAR 401.19).
• A dual lesson is dual for the student and PIC for the instructor. Dual instruction flight time is time spent receiving instruction from a qualified instructor (CAR 400.01). Transport Canada’s Flight Instructor Guide tells instructors, “As pilot-in-command, you have the final authority” (TP 975).

What counts as co-pilot time?

Time as the assigned co-pilot in an aircraft that needs one. Transport Canada counts it in two cases: an aircraft certified to be flown by two crew, or a single-pilot aircraft that an operator’s certificate requires be flown with a co-pilot (AC 401-002). For the first case, Transport Canada’s aircraft type designator table lists the minimum crew for each type (Standard 421 Appendix A).

The second case catches people. Some operators are approved to fly certain aircraft single-pilot IFR. On a flight dispatched that way, Transport Canada’s own example says a co-pilot “is not required and in fact is not permitted” (TC co-pilot flight time criteria). Sitting in the right seat of that flight isn’t co-pilot time. It works the other way too: if the captain isn’t qualified to fly single-pilot IFR, the company’s operations manual requires a second pilot, and that pilot’s time counts.

Co-pilot time used to count at half value towards a higher licence. That rule was repealed on April 14, 2014, and co-pilot time now counts in full towards the total flight time a higher licence requires (TC co-pilot flight time criteria). Older advice still quotes the 50% rule. Nearly all the time I put towards my own ATPL was pilot-in-command or dual, so it never touched me, but I know pilots it did.

When you apply for an Airline Transport Pilot Licence, it’s on you to show that the co-pilot time you logged qualifies. Transport Canada suggests a letter from your operations manager or chief pilot, citing the company operations manual (TC co-pilot flight time criteria).

What is PIC under supervision?

A way for a co-pilot to credit some of their time as pilot-in-command time towards an ATPL. It only exists inside a program run by an air operator. Operators of large aeroplanes can set one up. Operators of small aeroplanes or helicopters need the Minister’s authorisation first (Standard 421.11). I’ve flown for airlines that ran one, but I never flew or administered it, so what follows is the standard, not my experience.

To count, the time has to include every pilot-in-command function except taxiing: flight planning, take-off, landing, en route flying and the approach. It also needs at least one take-off and one landing for every ten hours (Standard 421.11).

It counts at half value. For an aeroplane ATPL, no more than 50% of your PIC under supervision time is credited towards the pilot-in-command requirement, up to 100 hours (Standard 421.11). The 250 hours of pilot-in-command time the licence requires can include at most those 100 (Standard 421.34).

That shapes how you log it. The application needs a summary of your PIC under supervision time and your take-offs and landings, and a note on the form saying which part of your PIC time was under supervision (Standard 421.11). Keep it in its own column from the first flight, with the take-offs and landings counted, so you can show exactly which hours were under supervision.

The FAA’s version is different: it counts as PIC only inside an approved training program, and without one the time goes down as SIC. See PIC under supervision in the US. Under EASA rules, PICUS time goes in the PIC column, countersigned by the PIC; see PICUS in an EASA logbook.

What counts as cross-country time?

Since December 17, 2025, the regulations define it: “the flight time recorded when a flight follows standard navigation procedures along a pre-planned route to a destination that is at least 25 nautical miles from the point of departure” (CAR 400.01).

Before that, the regulations didn’t define it. Flight schools filled the gap with their own guidance, mine included, which is why the advice you’ll find varies so much. Much of it says you have to land somewhere else. The definition doesn’t mention a landing. It asks for a pre-planned route, standard navigation procedures, and a destination at least 25 nautical miles away.

Don’t confuse it with the specific cross-country flights a licence asks for. Mine, for the commercial licence, was a trip of 300 nautical miles. Each of these flights has its own conditions. For the Private Pilot Licence today, it’s a solo flight of at least 150 nautical miles with two full-stop landings away from the departure point (Standard 421.26). For the Commercial Pilot Licence, it’s at least 300 nautical miles, with full-stop landings at three other aerodromes, one of them at least 250 nautical miles in a straight line from where you started (Standard 421.30). Log the time as cross-country when it meets the definition. Keep the details of the qualifying flights (the route, the distance and where you landed) where you can find them.

When does night time start?

At the end of evening civil twilight, not at sunset, and it runs until morning civil twilight begins (CAR 101.01). The commercial licence asks for night time dual and solo (Standard 421.30). The ATPL asks for 100 hours of night as pilot-in-command or co-pilot, and 25 hours of night cross-country as pilot-in-command or under supervision (Standard 421.34).

Early in my career, night time was coveted, and night PIC cross-country most of all. It still is. I watched official sunset and sunrise times closely so I could work out how much night to log. On the longest day of the year, in northern Canada, I remember waiting very late for official night to begin before I departed for home base, just so I could log some of it.

Latitude is the catch. The further north you are in summer, the longer civil twilight lasts after sunset. North of about 60°N, around the summer solstice, it doesn’t end at all. In Yellowknife and Iqaluit there’s no night to log for weeks either side of the solstice. So don’t use a fixed number of minutes after sunset. Look up civil twilight for the place and the date. The National Research Council’s calculator gives it for any location in Canada (NRC sunrise/sunset calculator).

Is IFR time the same as instrument time?

Not by Transport Canada’s definition. CAR 401.08 asks you to record each flight’s conditions: day or night, VFR or IFR (CAR 401.08). That’s the rules you flew under. Instrument time is how you flew: time spent flying the aircraft by sole reference to the instruments, either under IFR in instrument conditions or in training under a hood or view-limiting goggles (TC AIM LRA 1.5).

On the line, I log the whole of an IFR flight as actual instrument. Even in visual conditions, an airline flight is flown on the instruments, with ATC providing most of the separation, unless we’re operating into a remote field without a tower or radar coverage. Logging only the minutes spent in cloud would be unworkable. No auditor has ever pushed back on it, but that’s my experience, and others’ may differ. If your instrument hours are close to a licence requirement, count them by the definition.

Instrument ground time is instrument time in a simulator or training device approved by Transport Canada (TC AIM LRA 1.5). It has limits. For an aeroplane ATPL, at most 25 of the 75 instrument hours can be ground time, and none of it counts towards the 1,500 hours of total flight time (Standard 421.34). Keep simulator sessions in your log, but out of your flight time.

What should you log from day one?

Log the breakdown Transport Canada uses when it has to reconstruct a pilot’s experience. When a log is lost, the sworn declaration that replaces it has to break your flying down this way (Standard 421.08):

• hours by day and by night, on single- and multi-engine aircraft, as pilot-in-command, co-pilot and dual
• cross-country hours by day and by night, in the same three capacities
• instrument flight time, and instrument ground time
• aircraft types and registrations
• your employers and the dates you worked for them

Add PIC under supervision, in its own column, if your operator runs a program. Then add whatever your career will ask about. My paper logbook had a few spare columns, and I committed them early. One went to night PIC cross-country, because the ATPL application needed it. The others went to turbine, EFIS and float time, which job applications and interviews asked about.

If you’re just starting, log every detail you can. Once a paper log runs out of columns, the rest goes in the margins, and that’s painful to read back and messy to total. A digital log doesn’t run out of columns, and Transport Canada accepts one. Are electronic pilot logbooks legal in Canada? covers what it accepts and what to keep on paper.

Whatever columns you keep, each entry still has to contain the minimum listed in Transport Canada pilot logbook requirements.