Interesting stat Jay. I think you would have to qualify that as people
"piloting an aircraft" versus people "flying." Anyone with $70 that does not
have a paralyzing fear of flying can "fly."

I'm sure there's a stat showing how many people have actually taken to the
air that includes commercial passengers.

Marco


"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
...
Here is the answer (well, closer than a guess) to my questions about
pilots:

See:
http://www.prb.org/Articles/2002/How...edonEarth.aspx

Using these numbers (through 2002) the best estimate is that 106
billion humans have ever lived on this planet.

If we use the estimate of 5 million pilots who have ever lived, we can
see that the number of people in history to have achieved the ability
to fly is something around .0047%, or 1 in 21,200 people...

Humans tried to fly for over 50,000 years, only figuring it out 104
years ago. In other words, for 99.8% of our history, we tried -- and
failed -- to fly. Yet, amazingly, that knowledge is now available to
anyone on the planet for the cost of a used Chevy Lumina.

That, my friends, is what we call "progress"...

;-)
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"