fly-off time

My airworthy cert states that I have a 5 hour fly-off. Is this tach, hobbs, or clock time?

JBHansen said:

My airworthy cert states that I have a 5 hour fly-off. Is this tach, hobbs, or clock time?

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It's not a 5 hr. fly-off time. It's whatever time it takes to sufficiently test the aircraft, assuming you are flight testing in the ELSA category.
The 5 hr. is a "minimum time".
This is "flight time". Generally flight time starts when the aircraft is set into motion with the intention of flying and ends when you complete the taxi-in from a flight.

In addition to Mel's info, the standard time depiction on an ELSA RV-12 is hobbs time. So once your are done doing any ground testing/adjusting, the time displayed over and above that time, is usable for meeting the minimum.
You should be using the PAP test cards for the flight testing.... most people find that they are hard pressed to complete in 5 hrs.

As a point of reinforcement to Scott?s comment, I?m certainly not the most proficient pilot out there, with about 550 hours, but I just completed mine this past Sunday, and it took around 9 hours for me to complete the PAP flight tests. Full disclosure - I had to repeat a couple

I?m with you Bob. I took about 12 hrs to complete my PAP test cards. I found the process a great way to really take the 12 through it?s paces.
I have a Classic Skyview and use the Hobbs for my hourly monitoring of operations.

Took me 8 hours. For legal purposes I would want at least 5 hours on the tach before leaving my test area in case anything happened. My first hour was spent orbiting the airport 1000 feet above the traffic pattern (approved by the tower). I did that with all my 4 homebuilts to be sure the thing would fly and turn the propeller before venturing into the wild blue yonder!