Personal Minimums Check
Enter an airport to check its live weather against your personal minimums — a clear GO / CAUTION / NO-GO with the exact factor that's near or over your limit. Set your minimums once; they're saved on your device and also drive every airport page.
Enter an airport to check the current weather against your personal minimums.
Your minimums & aircraft
Saved on this device. Effective crosswind/DA limits use the lower of your minimum and the aircraft value.
Saved on this device. These also power the GO / CAUTION / NO-GO readiness on every airport page.
What are personal minimums?
Personal minimums are the weather and operating limits you set for yourself, tighter than the legal regulatory minimums, based on your experience, currency, and aircraft. The FAA encourages every pilot to establish them and review them honestly before each flight. Common factors are ceiling, visibility, surface wind, crosswind, gust, and density altitude.
The distinction worth holding onto is this: the regulations mark the edge of what is permitted, and they are the same for a pilot with 60 hours and a pilot with 6,000. Personal minimums mark the edge of what you are reliably good at, on an average day, in the airplane you are actually flying. The gap between those two edges is the margin, and the point of writing the numbers down is that you decide the margin in a quiet room rather than in the run up area with passengers waiting.
Not sure what numbers to pick? Read Setting personal minimums that you'll actually keep for the FAA framework, a starting set, and the commitment rules.
Building a baseline
The approach the FAA Safety Team teaches is to set a baseline for ordinary conditions first, then raise it for anything about a specific flight that is harder than ordinary. Baseline numbers are best taken from your own logbook rather than a published table: the strongest crosswind you have landed comfortably and recently is a real figure in a way that a number from an article is not. Where you have no experience to draw on, start conservative and let the number come down as the logbook fills.
| Factor | What to write down |
|---|---|
| Ceiling | Separate figures for day and night. Night deserves a good deal more, because the horizon you would use to notice a descending trend is not there |
| Visibility | Also split day and night. Haze at dusk is the case people underestimate |
| Surface wind | Total wind, which governs turbulence and handling on the ground as much as the landing |
| Crosswind component | Not the demonstrated crosswind in the POH — that is a test pilot's figure on a dry runway, not a limit and not a promise about you |
| Gust spread | The difference between steady and gust. A 12 knot wind gusting 25 is a different airplane on short final than a steady 25 |
| Density altitude | Worth a hard limit at any field where the runway is short or the terrain is high |
| Runway length | A multiple of the book distance rather than the book distance. Many pilots use 1.5x or more |
Adjusting for the flight in front of you
The baseline assumes an ordinary day. Add to it whenever something is not ordinary, and add for each factor rather than picking the single worst one — the risks stack.
| When this is true | Move the numbers |
|---|---|
| You have not flown in several weeks | Raise ceiling and visibility, drop the wind limits |
| New to the airplane, or new avionics | Treat yourself as low time in it regardless of total hours |
| Unfamiliar airport, short or narrow runway | Tighten wind and crosswind; add runway margin |
| Night, or a flight that lands after dark | Raise ceiling and visibility substantially |
| Mountainous terrain or high density altitude | Add performance margin and a firm turnaround point |
| Passengers, or a schedule you care about | Tighten everything. This is where the pressure to go comes from |
| Tired, unwell, or anything else on the IMSAFE list | Raise everything, or do not go |
That last row is the one that catches experienced pilots. Almost every account of a flight that went badly contains a reason the pilot wanted to be somewhere, and the numbers are what you set up in advance to outrank that want.
Making them stick
A limit you renegotiate is not a limit. Three habits are what turn a worksheet into a decision you actually keep:
- Check them before you look at the forecast. Reading the weather first and the limits second invites the limits to move by exactly the amount required.
- Change them only on the ground, never for the flight at hand. Loosening a number because you have grown into it is sound. Loosening one because today's crosswind is two knots over is the failure the whole exercise exists to prevent.
- Decide the alternative in advance. A no go is much easier when the answer to "then what" is already known — a later slot, a drive, a different airport.
How SkyReady uses them
Your minimums are saved on this device (no account, nothing leaves your browser). On every airport page we compare the live METAR and TAF against them and show a plain GO / CAUTION / NO-GO readiness — calling out exactly which factor is near or over your limit. The crosswind and density altitude limits use the lower of your personal minimum and your aircraft's value.
Because the check runs against live weather, it is worth pairing with the tools that produce the inputs: the crosswind calculator for a specific runway, the METAR and TAF decoder when you want to see how a forecast period was read, and the 1-2-3 rule checker when the destination forecast is the thing in doubt.
This is an advisory aid, not authoritative. You are the pilot in command; always verify against official sources and your own judgment.
FAQ
Do my minimums sync across devices?
Not yet — they're stored in this browser only. Set them on the device you plan with.
Why is the readiness "CAUTION" when conditions look fine?
A value within 20% of one of your limits shows CAUTION (a heads-up), versus NO-GO when a limit is exceeded. Tighten or loosen your numbers above to match your comfort.
What are personal minimums?
They are the ceiling, visibility, wind and other limits you set for yourself, deliberately tighter than the legal minimums, based on your experience, your currency and your airplane. The regulations describe the edge of what is permitted. Personal minimums describe the edge of what you are actually good at on an ordinary day.
Are personal minimums required by the FAA?
No. Nothing in the regulations obliges you to have them or to write them down. The FAA recommends them strongly through the FAA Safety Team and the WINGS program, and every published personal minimums worksheet is guidance rather than a rule. The value comes from deciding the numbers when nothing is at stake.
What numbers should I start with?
A common starting point for a newly certificated VFR pilot is a 3,000 ft ceiling and 5 statute miles by day, more by night, a surface wind around 15 knots and a crosswind component well inside what you have actually demonstrated. Start from your own logbook rather than a table: the highest crosswind you have landed comfortably and recently is a real number in a way a published figure is not.
How often should I review them?
Review the baseline every six months or so, and after anything that changes your currency: a long gap in flying, a new airplane, a new type of terrain, an instrument rating. Adjust for the specific flight every time. The one review that does not count is the one done while looking at the weather you want to fly in.
Should I ever loosen my minimums?
Yes, but only on the ground and never for the flight in front of you. Raising a limit because you have flown 30 more hours is sound; raising one at the hold short line because the crosswind is 3 knots over is how the number stops meaning anything. If you find yourself renegotiating in the airplane, the honest reading is that the flight is a no go.
How do minimums work for an IFR flight?
The same idea applied to approach minimums: a personal figure above the published DA or MDA and above the charted visibility, wider when you are less current or the approach is unfamiliar. Many instrument pilots add a couple of hundred feet and half a mile to a precision approach and rather more to a non precision one, then tighten it back up as recency improves.
Does this replace a weather briefing?
No. It compares the live METAR and TAF against limits you have set and shows where you stand. It is an advisory aid: you are pilot in command, and an official briefing plus your own judgment still decide the flight.