Personal Minimums

[Max Clark]

I was looking at a flight recently and the destination weather was "okay" but not great.

Something that I know I could fly into, but just had the nagging feeling that it wasn't a good plan so I scrubbed.

Made me realized that I haven't ever sat down and written out my personal minimums for an easier no-go decision.

If you've done this before, I'm curious what are your personal minimums?

• Ceilings
• Wind
• Crosswind
• Visibility
• Turbulence
• Etc...

Have you increased or decreased your minimums over time? What prompted you to make the change (more experience and comfort, or "that was a bad idea" hindsight)?

What I'm really interested in is the ADM that lead you to your choices. I think this could probably be more valuable than the actual decision (there are absolutes of course like don't flight into a thunderstorm).

Thanks!

I've linked a couple of resources I've found online (and uploaded the PDFs for future reference).

https://www.faa.gov/sites/faa.gov/files/2022-01/Personal-Minimums.pdf

https://www.faasafety.gov/files/gslac/courses/content/28/212/Personal Minimums Checklist.pdf

Personal-Minimums.pdf Personal Minimums Checklist.pdf

[bigmo]

I recall filling out my personal minimums sheet when I got my instrument. And I do the same if teaching a newly minted instrument pilot - but it's really as a reminder for them to always be thinking about managing risk.

IMO there are far too many overlapping factors to just apply a quantitative risk assessment to dispatch. It's really a qualitative process and takes years to find the right solution. I have one rule - always have an out. That can manifest in a number of ways (ie - never taking off at an airport I cannot land at). I'm ok pushing an approach down to mins if I know I have several options 30-45 mins away.  

[201er]

36 minutes ago, Max Clark said:

If you've done this before, I'm curious what are your personal minimums?

• Ceilings
• Wind
• Crosswind
• Visibility
• Turbulence

Personal-Minimums.pdf 1.63 MB · 0 downloads Personal Minimums Checklist.pdf 154.92 kB · 0 downloads

I can see a benefit from this for beginners but I don't like this whole written set in stone type minimums. It's all relative.

For example crosswind... I wouldn't put a specific number on it. It depends on the size of the runway, if it's a steady or gusty crosswind, takeoff or landing? On a short narrow runway, my tolerance for an extreme crosswind is much lower than on a long wide runway. 

I find ceilings and visibility to be a funny one as well. Depends on the terrain, approaches available. Heck it even depends on each other. Lower ceilings with great visibility is a bit different than somewhat higher ceilings with terrible visibility.

Tolerance for turbulence also depends on things like passengers, expected duration, fatigue. There are days when you just aren't up for taking a beating as much as other days.

I can definitely say that there have been some brutally difficult "nicer" days and some fairly easy "very low" days.

Lately my minimums have been mostly guided by personal condition more than the flying. Too much work/child/family exhaustion makes me less energetic/focused to be taking it to the lower limit.

My absolute biggest risk-mitigation tool though is to care less and make loose enough plans that the flying is never mandatory. Things like leave a day early, be ok coming back a day late, or even scrap the trip because there would be too much pressure. The personal minimums go right out the window when get-there-itis takes over. Managing and preventing get-there-itis goes a far longer way than writing down some numbers. If you're not in a hurry to be there, you'll "know" if things are within personal mins or not on a case by case basis.

[Vance Harral]

I applaud the concept of personal minimums.  But when I give my students the speech about them, I treat them like grownups, and explain that reality often makes it difficult to employ the concept the way it's written in the books.

In fantasy land, one sets personal minimums for weather, pilot rest, and so forth, that start out very conservative, and are gradually stepped down as the pilot gains experience.  This fantasy can actually work OK in reality if your life moves slowly, the frequency at which you fly changes smoothly, and the weather where you live is broadly varied.

In reality, most of my students experience sporadic patterns.  For the pilot, it's common to do a lot of flying in a short time, then have long layoffs when money or life work load gets in the way.  Weather-wise, where I live, winds tend to be either mostly calm, or gusting 20+ with shear; and ceilings are either very high or very low.  So this idea that you gradually push your minimums down (and up) with experience and currency, just doesn't work out in practice for me and my kin.

Two specific examples that are common in my area illustrate the point.  First, the idea that you can do something like step up your crosswind tolerance in increments by first flying on a day with 5 knots crosswind, then soon thereafter 7, then soon thereafter 10, and so on, is laughable - that just doesn't happen around here.  The reality is that you have to set your sights directly on 15G25, and go out with an instructor on those days until you're willing to accept that level of risk by yourself (and we don't lie to ourselves - a 15G25 crosswind always adds risk to takeoff and landing no matter how comfortable and proficient you are).

With regard to IFR minimums, there's very little flyable IMC on the front range of the Rockies where I live.  The clouds almost always have ice in the winter, and convective activity in the summer, and they're rarely within 2000' of the ground.  So you're not going to "ease down" your approach minimums from 1500' AGL to 1000' to 700' and so on.  You practice those ILS/LPV's under the hood to 200' AGL as if your life depended on it (because it does).  Then you go out on one of those rare flyable IMC days and shoot a low approach for real.  People with real life work/family schedules around here actually get to fly IMC a couple of times a year, if they're lucky.  But if you make it work, it becomes reasonable to take that trip to the coast where benign IMC is more common.

In the end, I've come to feel the same way as @bigmo about it.  I actually care less about the theoretical concept of holistic personal minimums for a complete flight, than I do about "outs".  I tell my students it's OK to take off if they judge it reasonable to take off from the airport they're already sitting at, and if they can reasonably expect to return right back to that airport.  That keeps them reasonably safe for the first 10 minutes of the flight.  Everything after that is dynamic: if you don't like the winds at your destination (maybe the look of them while 100 miles away, or maybe an actual aborted approach when you get there), can you find winds that are less and/or more aligned with a runway somewhere else?  Do you have the fuel to get there?  If IMC, where is the nearest VFR, or at least the nearest 1000' ceiling?  These things need to be re-assessed several times per hour while enroute, and - this is critical - you need to be fully willing to wind up somewhere other than your original destination, even if you have to pee in a bottle on the way there.  I've come to feel that some of the most important items in my safety arsenal are a credit card, toothbrush, change of underwear, and my work-over-VPN laptop in my flight bag.  Having that stuff with me on every flight makes it much easier to divert somewhere with favorable conditions and wait things out.  It turns out to be really rare to actually do this.  But it's only once I developed the mindset, that I began to truly feel like I was correctly managing risk while traveling GA.

 

[Ragsf15e]

I do think it’s useful for a newly minted (or less than current) ifr pilot to have some good numbers to assess their plan.  It’s harder for them to do the full adm conceptually.  But once you’re comfortable looking through all the ins and outs of the adm, personal mins become less helpful.

Say 750’/2nm/15kt xw plus not imc for cruise… it’s got to be something that they can actually use until they figure out how to consider the whole picture which is more complicated than PMs can encompass.

[Pinecone]

1 hour ago, bigmo said:

IMO there are far too many overlapping factors to just apply a quantitative risk assessment to dispatch. It's really a qualitative process and takes years to find the right solution. I have one rule - always have an out. That can manifest in a number of ways (ie - never taking off at an airport I cannot land at). I'm ok pushing an approach down to mins if I know I have several options 30-45 mins away.  

Agreed.  But I have taken off from an airport that was marginal to get back into.  My FIL (former B-24/B-29 pilot) questioned my judgement (he, his wife and his daughter, my wife were in the plane also).

I pointed out that if I had an issue and had to land right away, the approach into the airport we were departing from was a VOR approach.  The VOR was on the field of a nearby, larger airport.  So we would fly to another airport to get back to the one we took off from.  And that airport had ILS approaches.  And we were taking off east bound on runway 10, and there was an ILS Rwy 8 at the other field, and we were actually inside the IAF for that approach.  VERY quick to get back on the ground.  13 nm airport center to airport center.

He smiled and said, I knew you had thought thing out.

A LOT of overlapping factors that go into the decision.

 

[dzeleski]

I dont use personal minimums as such anymore, I found they didnt make any sense the second I started using my airplane to travel with an IR.

For instance if you wont shoot an approach to ILS minimums you should be asking yourself why. If the reason is you personally believe its too risky, thats understandable, but you should still be capable of doing it. If the reason is because you dont feel confident in your skills you need to find an instructor immediately. Weather changes rapidly and you will find yourself in a situation you wish you were not in, but your training and skill set needs to be there to get you back on the ground safely.

Mike Patey had this talk on this subject:

 

Edited Tuesday at 04:47 PM by dzeleski

[201er]

2 hours ago, Max Clark said:

I was looking at a flight recently and the destination weather was "okay" but not great.

Something that I know I could fly into, but just had the nagging feeling that it wasn't a good plan so I scrubbed.

Made me realized that I haven't ever sat down and written out my personal minimums for an easier no-go decision.

If you've done this before, I'm curious what are your personal minimums?

Let me counter that with a question for those who have hard personal minimums. Do you cancel an approach you're already on if the reported minimums suddenly go below your personal minimums (but above FAA minimums)? Do you immediately turn around or land if an area you are overflying is below your personal mins? Are personal minimums strictly a ground-based flight planning concept or something people adhere strictly to in flight?

[MikeOH]

Always have an out; even on a CAVU day for a $200 burger; the airport may unexpectedly close.  It's happened to me; guy geared up on the only runway just before we arrived.

Extra time is one of the best 'outs' available; carry plenty of fuel

 

[Ragsf15e]

I do think it’s useful for a newly minted (or less than current) ifr pilot to have some good numbers to assess their plan.  It’s harder for them to do the full adm conceptually.  But once you’re comfortable looking through all the ins and outs of the adm, personal mins become less helpful.

Say 750’/2nm/15kt xw plus not imc for cruise… it’s got to be something that they can actually use until they figure out how to consider the whole picture which is more complicated than PMs can encompass.

[exM20K]

I agree with most of the above: It's more than WX minimums.  There are two approaches I like which reside at opposite ends of the flippancy scale.

1. Ask yourself: "How would the accident report read?"  ("what a moron" = no-go)
2. use a Flight Risk Assessment Tool, which covers things a new (or old) pilot may not have contemplated.  Example here.

and, of course IMSAFE and PAVE.

-dan

[Max Clark]

2 hours ago, 201er said:

It depends on the size of the runway, if it's a steady or gusty crosswind, takeoff or landing? On a short narrow runway, my tolerance for an extreme crosswind is much lower than on a long wide runway. 

"Demonstrated Cross Wind is 13 Knots (This is not a limitation)"

55° angle @ 16-28 kts... 15-20 kts cross crosswind component is more than I want to take on if I can avoid it.

[Max Clark]

2 hours ago, Vance Harral said:

I actually care less about the theoretical concept of holistic personal minimums for a complete flight, than I do about "outs".  I tell my students it's OK to take off if they judge it reasonable to take off from the airport they're already sitting at, and if they can reasonably expect to return right back to that airport.  That keeps them reasonably safe for the first 10 minutes of the flight.  Everything after that is dynamic: if you don't like the winds at your destination (maybe the look of them while 100 miles away, or maybe an actual aborted approach when you get there), can you find winds that are less and/or more aligned with a runway somewhere else?  Do you have the fuel to get there?  If IMC, where is the nearest VFR, or at least the nearest 1000' ceiling?  These things need to be re-assessed several times per hour while enroute, and - this is critical - you need to be fully willing to wind up somewhere other than your original destination, even if you have to pee in a bottle on the way there.  I've come to feel that some of the most important items in my safety arsenal are a credit card, toothbrush, change of underwear, and my work-over-VPN laptop in my flight bag.  Having that stuff with me on every flight makes it much easier to divert somewhere with favorable conditions and wait things out.  It turns out to be really rare to actually do this.  But it's only once I developed the mindset, that I began to truly feel like I was correctly managing risk while traveling GA.

This whole paragraph is excellent

[Hank]

Yep, what Vance said. Plus, my own minimums are flexible--as I fly more often and don't think "am I current?", my minimums decrease; fly less, needed to get current, my minimums increase.

My last IFR flight was a brief climb through IMC, cruise on top for 4 hours. The forecast at my destination was scattered cirrus 25,000; when I flew past the end of the layer below me, there was a much lower layer going off into the distance left, right and forward.

Approach asked if I had weather at my destination; when I replied affirmative, they cane right back with "state intentions." Conditions were 400 overcast, visibility 2 miles in mist, and I forget the winds. But one county south was 900 overcast, visibility unlimited, winds from the west but not strong. They also had an ILS. So i diverted there and let my wife drive 45 minutes to get me. Didn't feel like messing with it after a 4-hour flight where I'd left my travel mug of ice water in the Uber, and had less than 1/2 bottle of water in the plane. Naturally the skies cleared up a few hours later. 

[Pinecone]

19 hours ago, Ragsf15e said:

I do think it’s useful for a newly minted (or less than current) ifr pilot to have some good numbers to assess their plan.  It’s harder for them to do the full adm conceptually.  But once you’re comfortable looking through all the ins and outs of the adm, personal mins become less helpful.

Say 750’/2nm/15kt xw plus not imc for cruise… it’s got to be something that they can actually use until they figure out how to consider the whole picture which is more complicated than PMs can encompass.

The problem is, many experienced pilots fly themselves into bad situations.

[Ragsf15e]

3 hours ago, Pinecone said:

The problem is, many experienced pilots fly themselves into bad situations.

True.  Thinking that you did sufficient ADM and actually doing it are different.  Probably why we went with personal mins to begin with, but they can get superfluous, overly restrictive, or just plain unwieldy if you actually think it all through in the first place. Oh, and you need an accurate estimate of your own abilities which is probably the most difficult part.

[201er]

2 hours ago, Ragsf15e said:

True.  Thinking that you did sufficient ADM and actually doing it are different.  Probably why we went with personal mins to begin with, but they can get superfluous, overly restrictive, or just plain unwieldy if you actually think it all through in the first place. Oh, and you need an accurate estimate of your own abilities which is probably the most difficult part.

This shouldn’t be difficult. Always underestimate rather than over. But always strive to improve, practice, and expand those abilities. Keep a wide enough margin that the worst failure you could be reprimanding yourself for is “getting close to getting close to your limit”.

[midlifeflyer]

On 3/4/2025 at 9:17 AM, Max Clark said:

Have you increased or decreased your minimums over time? What prompted you to make the change (more experience and comfort, or "that was a bad idea" hindsight)?

I recently changed my takeoff minimums.. they were high - 800’. We were heading out a the ceiling was 600’. It was improving so we waited. When we took off into the 800’ overcast it was easy. Time to decrease it.

that was it. Do something at or near the current personal minimum, see it was handleable, change it.

[varlajo]

My personal minima have definitely morphed with time, notably to allow for SVFR departures.

I have a separate checklist and PM for mountain flying, which is much more restrictive than normal day VFR.

[EricJ]

1 hour ago, varlajo said:

I have a separate checklist and PM for mountain flying, which is much more restrictive than normal day VFR.

That totally makes sense.   In the mountains or other challenging terrain the risks can go up significantly, so it makes sense to treat those environments differently.   

[201Steve]

I was planning on a flight to Kansas City tomorrow about 900 NM and scrubbed it this afternoon for an airline ticket after discovering my personal minimums were forecasted to be exceeded. 60 kts on the nose. 
 

speed minimums. I refuse to travel at skyhawk speeds. 
 

 

[Pinecone]

41 minutes ago, 201Steve said:

I was planning on a flight to Kansas City tomorrow about 900 NM and scrubbed it this afternoon for an airline ticket after discovering my personal minimums were forecasted to be exceeded. 60 kts on the nose. 
 

speed minimums. I refuse to travel at skyhawk speeds. 

It still would probably been faster in your plane.

[Ibra]

Have personal minima, test them, adjust +/-, rince and repeat 

There is more to it than just visibility and ceiling numbers, variable currency and past experience? home-base vs unfamiliar places? limit utilitization tells you how restrictive or aggressive? long story short, there are more factors than a single number and single limit, it's multifactor and ideally you have to stay in the middle, if you go near the edges pick one thing at the time, don't be that guy who is on low fuel going max crosswind with low visibility on tighter runway because he is coming fast with no flaps due to icing...

For terminal weather, most private IFR pilots will regularly fly in typical SVFR conditions with occasional CAT-I landing 2 to 4 times per year depending how much they fly.

Don't bust system minima: some even normalize it, then one day luck teach them to stay clear, if they are lucky to have a lesson and walk away.

For en-route weather, I don't think it's easy to have hardcoded minima? some have VMC en-route, others would fly in anything not frontal or bellow freezing point, then few ones will fly frontal weather in winter and summers bellow freezing levels. No matter what you choose, have plan B and C, even flying in same cloud twice with same forcast 2h appart give you two completely different experiences ! 

Some pilots rely on planning information to mitigate weather risk (cancel trip, depart early, depart later) others deal with it dynamically as more airborne information comes during flight (have a look with plan to divert), if you have plan and process you can call this "risk-reward appetite", if not you are relying on luck and "hope is not a strategy".

Edited 13 hours ago by Ibra

[midlifeflyer]

2 hours ago, Ibra said:

There is more to it than just visibility and ceiling numbers, variable currency and past experience? home-base vs unfamiliar places?

Great point. People often don’t think of some others. And it’s not just about weather.  I recently had an experience where I added one. I was departing from a nontowered airport in an unfamiliar area on an IFR flight. “Expected” clearance in hand, I departed VFR to pick up my clearance in the air. 

I can verify that during departure climb in busy airspace is not the best time to copy a different full route clearance!

New personal minimum - get the clearance on the ground in an unfamiliar area, regardless of weather conditions. 

[dkkim73]

On 3/4/2025 at 11:09 AM, exM20K said:

1. use a Flight Risk Assessment Tool, which covers things a new (or old) pilot may not have contemplated.  Example here.

Well, that's discouraging. The MMOPA-FRAT tool basically told me I should get used to walking. Which, to be fair, I do think is good health advice.

On a more serious note, it does bring up some thoughtful aspects to consider. Also the weightings of answers are interesting food for thought (e.g. night, convection). It made me think about some regular flights I make, with hazards that might be more of an issue if I did it less often (I think). Specifically, terrain overall and darkness on arrival (where there is less terrain). Familiarity with the geography mitigates some risk, whereas flying into an area for the first time really makes me cautious (e.g. Missoula).

A mental model I used when I was training more intensively and a bit younger about 20 yrs ago (I was busy in general but it was very regimented, I was training more regularly, and rarely flew under schedule pressure) was: 1. zone of competence/proficiency 2. zone of comfort 3. zone of operation. Trying to think explicitly about each and keep #3 inside of #2 which was inside of #1 (think of concentric circles). For things like approach minima it meant a lot more training to really do this. I'm not really finding the concept quite as explicitly useful these days, but it helps to frame my choices of what to focus on practicing, and what to attempt operationally.

As a lower-time pilot now flying for commuting, outside of specific more obvious things (lots of convective wx, prolonged icing exposure w/o out, unusually big winds), it tends to be more of a gestalt. A gestalt dominated practically by the *number* of separate things to worry about, or things that will "chain together" to magnify effect. E.g. terrain prevents getting out of icing, widespread low ceilings increase terrain/alternate hazard. Tired, end of day, or feeling "off" will make my spider-sense tingle about any of the above. But a smooth day-into-night flight with high ceilings over terrain to a less-challenging airport (my homeward leg) I might still do at the end of the day if everything else is good, even though that would flag caution on most GA ORM/FRAT tools. OTOH I constantly brief this route, read the area forecasts like the torrid romance novels they are, and am constantly looking at alternates.

Really appreciating all the view points here, BTW...
David