Glider cross-country time toward commercial SEL requrements?

(Regrets if this gets posted twice. The first time,
it seemed to disappear into bit-space.)

I don't know the answer to the original question, but
I'm interestd to learn the answer(s).

Interesting the FAA requires a flight of 50nm and a
landing away from the originating field to be considered
'XC.' In a glider, if you get more than one thermal
away from home field, you're 'XC.'

While I do want to know the answer, I wonder why the
original poster of this thread would want to 'cut short'
his 'training' time. Yes, he will save money on flying
before he gets his rating, but he's going to spend
the money anyway after he gets his rating, so overall,
I don't see a money savings.

It's odd that we do all we can do to fly as many hours
as we can, gaining experience, having fun, and seeing
new sights with each additional moment in the air.
Then, we look for ways to make our flying time shorter.
I read about and hear about pilots complaining about
diversions dictated by Air Traffic Control and I wonder
why the complaint. Yes, I know it's more money, but
heck, we're going to have to pay to fly anyway. On
one VFR flight in a Cezzna 150, the controller vectored
me around the Class C airport I was approaching to
land due to traffic. He apologized for the diversion,
but I thought it was great. I flew over land I hadn't
been over and got some addtional flying time. Didn't
bother me a bit. Yep, some of us want to build time
and some of us complain when we have to fly more than
we think we should.

What does it take to make us happy?
(I'll settle for a 0.5 knot thermal about right now
:-) )

Ray Lovinggood
Carrboro, North Carolina, USA
(Facing a long winter, and no wise cracks from the
Northern Plains crowd about the 'long' North Carolina
winters...)

At 06:30 24 November 2004, Tom Seim wrote:
(Matt Michael) wrote in message news:...
I'm trying to determine if any of my glider cross-country
time can be
applied to the commercial single engine aeronautical
experience
requirements.

FAR 61.129 says '50 hours of cross-country flight
of which at least 10
hours must be in airplanes'.

FAR 61.1 defines cross country time as, among other
things, flight
with landing beyond 50 nautical miles of departure
and 'conducted in
an appropriate aircraft'.

I've talked to a local examiner, FSDO, and Oklahoma
City. All are
saying, 'Hmmm, good question! Let me get back to
you'.

Anyone with experience with this question care to
weigh in?

Thanks,
Matt Michael CFIG
Woodstock N20609 'Wanders Wonder'
IS-28B2 Lark N28DG

I have done exactly this. The bottom line is that you
CAN use your
glider XC time, IF you land more than 50 NM from departure.
This saved
me about one half of the flight time. Nowadays, that
is 25 times $70
per hour = $1,750.

Tom