Challenge yourself

Before you think I’m going to lecture you about the value of personal minimums, I’m not. I already know you aren’t a pilot who quickly wipes snow off the wings (while it is still snowing) before departing into the wild white yonder. And I’m also quite aware that you aren’t that newly minted instrument pilot who thinks departing in zero-zero weather with your family on board is “doable.”

I get it: You know the value of personal minimums. You’ve even written them down and given them to your CFII for safe keeping, always sticking to them as part of every preflight. You’re good, right? Well, maybe.

Here’s the thing: Setting personal minimums is a lot harder than you think. Why? Because they change depending on how often you fly, the airplane and passengers you’re flying with, and, obviously, the actual mission at hand. In other words, personal minimums have context.

Moreover, you only get to truly know your minimums by constantly challenging them when the right opportunity arises. And therein lies the rub: How do you differentiate the good, minimum-expanding opportunities from the bad, AOPA Air Safety Institute documentary ones?

It’s kind of like leaning out your engine during cruise: You “lean out” your personal minimums by challenging them just until things feel a little rough (read: a bounce, skip, and a hop) and then quickly push them back in to smooth everything out again. And the more you fly the leaner you go during this process.

Case in point: When I was a newly minted private pilot, my personal minimums were VFR ceilings and a 10-knot direct crosswind. I was a renter and flew all my flight school’s steam-gauge Cessna 172s; they were the same airplanes I used during my primary training. Before every flight, I would get a standard briefing, check the METAR map for those little green dots, verify the winds were reasonable, and off I went. Life was good. But my personal minimums had a major drawback: I rarely got the opportunity to safely challenge them.

Fast forward a few months: I’m an instrument student flying a Cessna Cardinal, and it’s springtime in the Northeast. How long do you think my 10-knot direct crosswind limit lasted? In fact, my first 10-plus knot direct crosswind landing was during my second or third practice approach ever. And that was after turning in the wrong direction at the missed approach point while trying to enter a hold in moderate turbulence. Luckily, since I have the best CFII in the world, everything worked out. But by the time I got my instrument ticket, I had already “leaned out” my minimums whether I wanted to or not.

With a few hundred hours under my wing, my personal minimums started to naturally evolve, and I now have a different set depending on the mission and airplane at hand. For example, if I’m flying with family or friends, my tolerance for crosswinds and in-flight turbulence is a lot lower. However, if I’m solo or with my CFII, and I’m taking the club’s Skylane with its new glass cockpit coupled to an advanced autopilot system, my ceilings get a bit lower, and the crosswind component can be a little higher. You see where this is going? My personal minimums are not a “one size fits all” set of numbers, but rather a set of safety margins for me to start my preflight conversation with. They become the starting point for me to ultimately arrive at my go or no-go decision for a given flight.

Most of the time when the topic of personal minimums comes up, the discussion is in the abstract. But the fact is your personal minimums have a lot more to do with the conversation you have with yourself during preflight than some static set of predetermined numbers you drop into a formula. And the more you fly and build up proficiency, the longer and more nuanced that preflight calculation becomes. The truth is that the ability to “lean out your minimums” safely is a skill, and one you learn over time. It requires constant practice to develop so you know how to bake in the appropriate margins on your next flight to keep you and your passengers safe when the unexpected arises.

Alexander Sack is a commercial pilot with an instrument rating and high-performance endorsement.