You’re in the muck on your hometown localizer approach at 3000 feet. You intercept final, center the needle and catch a glimpse of the highway below. A mile from the FAF and seven miles from the runway, still at 3000 feet, you begin to make out the runway. With visibility only three miles, you wait until crossing the FAF before descending to land. Can you log that?
There is no clear guidance and plenty of debate on the logging conundrum. To start, 14 CFR 61.51 (g) (1) states: “A person may log instrument time only for that flight time when the person operates the aircraft solely by reference to instruments under actual or simulated instrument flight conditions.”
