Jay Honeck wrote:
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"

Actually, I believe man was capable of flying much sooner than the
Wrights. I once heard that Iron Eaglebutt Henriques, a shamonyu medicine
man of the world famous Gravitigotcha tribe in South America once
obtained an unassisted sustained flight of 3,212 feet between the top of
Angel Falls and the forest floor in the year 1688, marking both the need
for more efficient airfoils and for tennis shoes to be worn at the top
of the falls.

--
Dudley Henriques