Born in the bush.
Built for clarity.
SimFlyMinimums started as a tool to stop me losing airports on bush flights. It grew into the cockpit companion I always wished I had.
The story
I'm Luis — a hobbyist programmer and flight sim enthusiast based in Portugal. It began with bush flying: low and slow over rough terrain, where it's surprisingly easy to lose track of the little strip you were aiming for and fly straight past it.
I wanted to fix that. I wanted to always know where I was, to improve my situational awareness, and to actually learn the things real crews do well — a clean descent, a proper checklist flow, a stabilised approach. So I started building a small satellite map that showed me the picture I was missing.
Along the way it grew: flight planning, checklists, a virtual first officer, terrain awareness, a Sim Playground for the fun stuff. But the guiding rule never changed — simplicity over an endless feature list. SimFlyMinimums is meant for beginner and intermediate simmers who want clarity and confidence, not another tool that takes a weekend to learn.
That's where the name comes from. Not approach minimums — though those matter too — but minimum clutter, maximum awareness.
“I preferred to keep it simple. The goal was never to do everything — it was to do the few things that build real awareness, well.”
— Luis, on why SimFlyMinimums stays lean