Ask A CFI: What Should My Personal Minimums Be?

You can access guidance for establishing personal minimums through faa.gov. [Courtesy of the FAA]

In “Personal Minimums,” there is the word “personal.” This means these limits are tailored to you: your skills, your experience, and your recency of flight.

They are the minimum conditions you deem acceptable to fly safely, or the maximum conditions you would be willing to operate in. These include several factors such as your fitness, weather conditions, the environment of the flight, and the aircraft.

The first thing to keep in mind is that personal minimums need to be updated frequently, and do not necessarily become less conservative over time.

It’s important to differentiate between regulatory requirements and what you consider safe for you to fly. Your minimums can be much more restrictive than the legal minimums set by the FAA. Similarly, published aircraft performance figures may reflect results that you cannot consistently achieve yourself.

Your minimums can also be more restrictive than what you are capable of doing. Being comfortable with your minimums is crucial, even if it means you might be able to operate the aircraft in worse conditions.

Personal minimums are not legally binding and are not meant to please anyone. They are useful for resisting external pressures coming from passengers, commitments, get-there-itis, etc. That’s why your minimums should be decided in advance of a flight, away from these pressures, and designed for specific flight operations rather than adjusted to make a flight possible.

Basically, it’s a reference document that you draft for yourself and each aircraft you fly, applicable to you and used only by you to help with your decision-making before and during a flight. There is no single right or wrong answer, but each element must be truthful and reflect your current abilities as a pilot.

Therefore, personal minimums depend more on your skills and experience than on your certificate level or the number of hours flown.

Two certificated private pilots might have received different training, having been exposed to different conditions because of climate, location, airspace, or even aircraft, and therefore may have very different personal minimums.

In the same way, a newly certificated commercial pilot might have less conservative minimums in a Cessna 172 than a pilot holding an ATP who hasn’t flown a GA airplane for a while. It seems logical that as you progress as a pilot, you gain more skills and overall experience and expect your minimums to become less restrictive, but without practice, skills lose their sharpness.

So, recency in the specific conditions of the flight is a very important factor, and that’s why reassessing your minimums frequently is key. You might fly every day under VMC, but that doesn’t mean you will be proficient in operating the same aircraft under IMC, which can lead you to set more restrictive minimums than when you first obtained your instrument rating.

Drafting your minimums might sometimes seem difficult, as it feels like a subjective self-assessment, but in reality, it should be based on objective facts. For each criterion, start with what you have actually experienced, under what conditions and how long ago it was. From there, readjust to reflect your current abilities.

Take into consideration that your peak performance achieved through intensive training may fade faster than skills you have mastered and maintained through regular practice. Your personal minimums should therefore include a safety margin rather than simply reflect the limits of your best performance.

Obviously, every experience needs a first time, so there are things we need to try to know what we are capable of. The important point is to do so gradually and safely, with a backup plan, or in a controlled environment through simulation, training, or with a more experienced pilot.

Establishing your minimums is the first step, using them properly is the second.

Personal minimums shouldn’t be treated as a series of independent numbers but as a combination of all factors. Even if each condition remains within its established limit, approaching several of those limits simultaneously doesn’t necessarily mean the flight can be conducted safely.

Knowing your personal minimums means being able to assess yourself honestly, accurately, and carefully. In turn, they become a valuable tool to guide your decision-making, help you recognize when conditions exceed your capabilities, and clear up doubts when faced with uncertainty. The FAA provides an excellent starting point for you to use when determining yours.

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