The limits you set on a calm day are the ones that protect you on a hard one.
Regulations give you the legal floor. Personal minimums are the limits you set for yourself — based on your own experience, currency, and honest comfort.
You decide them now, with a clear head, so that when the pressure is on — weather closing in, a schedule to keep, people waiting — you already know your answer. This tool builds a personal minimums profile you can print, sign, and keep in your flight bag. It adapts to where you are, from student pilot to seasoned professional. It won't make the decision for you. It gives you a line you drew yourself, and something to hold yourself to.
Takes about 5 minutes Adapts to your ratings & experience Printable commitment card
About youStep 1 of 7
Where are you as a pilot?
This sets sensible starting points and shows only the sections that apply to you. Everything is adjustable — these are your minimums, not ours.
Check all that apply. This decides which sections appear.
Experience and recency
Honest currency is the foundation of a personal minimum. Recent, frequent flying earns tighter numbers; a layoff should raise them until you rebuild.
Be honest with yourself — this is exactly the reflection the tool is for.
Currency self-check (Canada, for reference). Passengers: 5 take-offs & 5 landings in the past 6 months (night flights require 5 night take-offs & landings). Instrument: 6 instrument approaches in the past 6 months, plus an instrument check within 24 months. Recurrent training within 24 months; PIC/co-pilot within 5 years. Always confirm against the current CARs — rules change.
Beyond this gap, the next flight is a deliberate return-to-currency flight — not business as usual.
days
VFR weather comfort
The ceiling and visibility you're genuinely comfortable launching into — not the legal floor, and not your best-ever day. A number you'd hold even when it's inconvenient.
ft AGL
Legal is not the goal — but for reference, uncontrolled airspace below 1,000 ft AGL requires 2 SM day / 3 SM night, controlled airspace 3 SM and 500 ft below cloud.
SM
Night narrows your margins — fewer visual cues, harder to see weather and terrain. Most pilots set night numbers well above their day numbers.
ft AGL
SM
Ceiling and visibility are only half of it. The traps that catch current pilots are convective weather, ice, and a forecast that's already trending the wrong way.
NM
Wind, gusts and runway
Your comfort with what the surface is doing. Set these to what you can fly well on an average day in your usual aircraft — then honour them when the day isn't average.
kt
kt
Consider your aircraft's demonstrated crosswind as a ceiling, not a target.
Difference between steady wind and peak gust you'll accept.
kt
At typical loading, in your usual aircraft.
ft
Check what you fly regularly — not what you've done once. Each surface is its own skill.
Leave all unchecked if you operate only from established aerodromes.
Fuel and weight are where confident pilots quietly get caught. Set the reserve you refuse to dip below, and the weight line you won't cross.
The reserve you plan to still have on the ground — above the legal minimum.
min
For reference, the Canadian VFR fuel minimum is 30 min day / 45 min night — your personal reserve should sit above it.
Leave at 100% to commit to always being within limits, or set a personal margin below max gross.
% MGW
Terrain and performance
Where performance quietly runs out — hot, high, and over unforgiving ground. Set the lines that keep margin under the wings.
The highest departure/arrival density altitude I'll accept. Above this, I recompute takeoff and climb performance and reconsider the flight.
ft DA
The buffer I keep above rising ground and ridgelines.
ft AGL
Mountain and valley flying is its own discipline. Check only what you're trained and current for — these become commitments on your card.
Instrument comfort
Personal IFR minimums live above the published plate. The buffer you add is your margin for a bad day — tired, single-pilot, bumping along an approach to a runway you can't yet see.
ft
SM
Check the ones you're currently comfortable accepting. Anything unchecked becomes a personal no-go on your card.
You, and the pressure to go
Most avoidable accidents aren't about weather a pilot couldn't handle — they're about pressure a pilot didn't resist. This is where you decide, in advance, what will make you stop.
hrs sleep
These go on your card as promises to yourself. Add your own below.
The person you'll call to talk through a hard decision before you commit. Naming them now makes the call easier to make later.
Don't have someone? Cardinal Aviation offers exactly this — an experienced, independent second voice for go/no-go and trip decisions.
Fatigue and "get-home-itis" cause more trouble than weather most pilots could actually handle. Decide your limits now, when nobody's waiting on you.
legs
hrs
Personal minimums should be revisited as your currency and comfort change. Your card will carry a review-by date.
The "raise the bar" rule (built in)
Your numbers above assume a normal day. When risk stacks up — the PAVE factors: Pilot (tired, rusty, off), Aircraft (unfamiliar, a snag), enVironment (marginal weather, terrain, night), External pressure (a schedule, passengers, cost) — you raise your minimums for that flight.
Set your buffer for when two or more PAVE factors are in play:
ft
SM
kt
🔒 One step from your card
Where should we send it?
Enter your name and email to unlock, print, and download your personal minimums card. We'll also send you the occasional Cardinal Aviation flight-safety resource — no noise, unsubscribe anytime.
Please enter a valid email address to continue.
Your information is used to deliver your card and, if you opt in, occasional safety resources. We never sell your details. Cardinal Aviation · cardinalaviation.ca
How to use this. These are personal decision-making minimums, set by you, for you — not regulatory minimums and not advice for a specific flight. They never replace the Canadian Aviation Regulations, your aircraft limitations, an operator's SOPs, or your own pilot-in-command judgment on the day. Review them every few months and after any long layoff, and raise them any time you're not at your best. Cardinal Aviation makes no guarantee of any outcome; the pilot-in-command remains solely responsible for the safe conduct of every flight.