Will I fit?
"Am I too heavy to fly a glider?" is the most common question people are too embarrassed to ask a club. So is its twin, which nobody warns you about at all: you can also be too light. Here is how to check, against the aircraft you are actually about to fly.
Typical emergency rig is 7–10 kg / 15–22 lb. Zero if none is worn.
This is the one people get wrong. Check the flight manual, not a guess.
From the placard in the aircraft — not from a type page, and not from an older manual.
Flight-manual-approved ballast only, in its approved position, secured.
Most two-seat types have one, and both seats can be legal individually while the pair is not.
Why this direction is the serious one
Under the minimum, the centre of gravity moves aft. An aft CG degrades spin recovery — the aircraft can become reluctant or unable to recover from a spin. This is not the mirror image of being over the maximum, which is a structural limit on the seat and straps. Both are limits; they fail differently.
The fix is normal and routine: flight-manual-approved ballast, in its approved position, properly secured. Ask an instructor — clubs do this every weekend for lighter pilots and juniors.
What this assumes, and what it can't know
This ships no aircraft data, deliberately. Cockpit load limits are placarded per airframe, per serial block and per modification state, and they are only valid against that aircraft's current weighing report. A database of them would be wrong for somebody's glider on some day, and the failure mode is a centre of gravity outside limits. So you enter what the placard says.
Read the placard in the aircraft you are about to fly. Not a type page, not a forum post, not an older edition of the manual. A re-weigh, a repaint, a new instrument panel or an added battery all move it.
The parachute convention matters more than it sounds. Some manuals placard the load including the parachute and some do not. The difference is 7–10 kg, which is easily enough to move someone from inside the envelope to outside it.
This is not a weight and balance calculation. It does not compute a centre of gravity, and it does not check maximum all-up mass, maximum mass of non-lifting parts, or wing loading. It checks one placarded range.
For orientation only: the JAR 22 / CS-22 certification standard requires a type's placarded minimum cockpit load to be no more than 70 kg and its maximum no less than 110 kg (242 lb). Individual aircraft vary either side of that and the placard always governs.
Not yet reviewed by anyone but us. If you run a club's books and one of these assumptions is wrong, we would genuinely rather hear it than not — tell us and we'll credit you here. This is a budgeting estimate, not a quote. Every club sets its own rates and they change; check with the club before relying on a number.
If the answer was no
It very often is not the end of it. Different types have different limits, and a club with a mixed fleet can usually find one that works — heavier pilots fit some two-seaters comfortably that they do not fit in others, and lighter pilots fly with ballast as a matter of routine. Ask the club before you conclude the sport is closed to you.
Read: an honest first-year guide to learning →