A lot of talk here about weight, yes a consideration, but for most light aircraft (not talking VLA or microlights) this is doable, though you may need to be careful with fuel loads, for larger people though you also need to look at how you actually fit in the aircraft, you might fit in (say) a C150, but it will not be the most comfortable!:}

At 6'2" and 14 1/2 stone, having an instructor who was similarly (and perhaps even a bit better) constructed was a great distraction in a C152. This isn't helpful if you are as lousy at flying as I am.

The lessons where he wasn't available and he was substituted with someone smaller always went more smoothly. With the benefit of hindsight, the extra spent on a 172 would have been worth it.

So basically the aircraft was over gross weight before you put any gas in it....sure nice to see a flight school setting a good example for its students :rolleyes:

At the school I occasionally teach at any instructor that deliberately flew a lesson with the aircraft over its certified max gross weight, would be immediately fired.

At my school the 150 would also be flown overweight. Two adults and full fuel. Rationale when I mentioned this after learning about M&B: a few kg overweight doesn't bring the plane down, running out of fuel on cross country does. Center of gravity was within limits. The runway was very long, so we would already be at a few hundred feet before the end of the runway. Of course on paper everything was within legal limits and if we would get an inspection they would never check the remaining fuel... As a fresh student I believed their story, and without proper leaning it used much more fuel than the book said. A dubious safety measure.

Well, looking at this example Weight & Balance Calculator Cessna 152 - Javascript
This gives a useful load of 520lbs, 2x 14.5 stone =406lbs, so not over gross! In fact this leaves 114 lbs for fuel ~ 18USG, not full tanks, but certainly more than enough for a couple of hours plus and shows it can be done, I know there will be some with a higher DOW, but even these should be workable with care - but it still does not mean it will be a roomy learning environment!

@ JAFO

15 stone because at a sensible weight such as that, rather than 19 stone, you would be less likely to show evidence of the onset of type 2 diabetes in the wee test, which would make passing the medical more difficult (not impossible though) and you would find yourself more likely to have conditions imposed such as solo flight only.

@FleetFlyer

So, are you saying that your figure of 15 stone is just an arbitrary figure picked because it seemed as though being 15 stone might offer less chance of developing type 2 diabetes much, much later in life than 19 stone, or does the figure actually have some bearing on a 26 year old going for a LAPL medical?

BPF
I heartily agree. We usually ran with 15 - 17 gallons - never any more. The one time I asked if we should fill up (this was at 14gal), it was denied. By foxmoth's link's reckoning, this should have been in limits.

It didn't seem relevant to ask the instructor what he weighed exactly, so it was taken on trust that W & B were in order - given that both our lives were in his hands. Luckily, he was a fine and patient instructor, but he must have felt similarly cramped in the little 152. There wasn't much swing room to hit me over the head with the fire extinguisher when I did something stupid. Which was frequently.