It may also depend on how you define "active." There were about 800 US
pilots posting to the OLC last year, and I believe that would cover most
pilots who are "active" in one sense of the word.



wrote:
My personal back of the envelope estimates are pretty close to your
WAG of 5-6 thousand. The 29 thousandish estimates are clearly insane
for any reasonable definition of an active pilot.

Personally, I like to look at how many clubs and commercial operations
there are (since these are easier to count), and then guestimate
roughly how many ACTIVE pilots there are at each. Having spent time
at a number of clubs and some of the larger commercial FBOs, I have a
feeling for what are reasonable numbers of active pilots at an
operation. I really have a tough time coming up with more than five-
seven thousandish active pilots. If there are more, then where are
they hiding?


On May 15, 7:00 am, Gregg Ballou wrote:
My WAG would be about 5-6 thousand. Defining active is tricky,
say at least one flight per year as PIC or actively training. Iirc
there are about 5k gliders in the US, some shared some parked
indefinitely. Why not ask the SSA to add 'how many glider
flights last year' question to their renewal form. Getting a list of
SSA members and checking it against a list of glider owners you
could get an idea of likely active non SSA members.

At 14:39 15 May 2009, bildan wrote:On May 15, 7:30=A0am, Bob wrote:
I am trying to get a handle on the number of active soaring
pilots in
the US for some statistical studies. In 2003 John Roake from
New
Zeeland stated in a table he developed that the number was
29390. He
also stated that the FAA and SSA numbers were not
representative. I am

looking for ideas on how to firm up these numbers so they
make sense.
The SSA membership numbers were less than half the
developed numbers.
I know that you don't have to be a member of the SSA to be
a soaring
pilot in the US but to claim that half the soaring pilots in the
US do
not fly at established sites seems a fair stretch. Any ideas?
Bob
I'm trying to get a reliable count of glider pilots as well. Here's
some things to think about.
Until recently the FAA determined if you were an active pilot
by
whether you hold a medical certificate. That played havoc
with
counting active glider pilots who aren't required to have one.
A large minority of glider certificate holders are just "rating
collectors" who will probably never fly a glider again after
getting
their rating but are counted in the FAA numbers as "glider
pilots".

Some fraction of SSA members no longer fly but maintain
their
membership for the magazine. A fairly large number -
perhaps half -
of active glider pilots are not SSA members. The non-SSA
member
pilots probably fly with glider FBO's since most, but not all,
clubs
are SSA chapters with SSA insurance.
All of the above make it hard to come up with a reliable
number of
'active' pilots. At least, we have to agree on what 'active'
means.
One fairly consistent number is that ~ 50% of dues paying
club members
and glider FBO customers will have flown at least once in the
past 12
months.
Lets get together by email to exchange numbers.
Bill Daniels
Chairman, SSA Growth and Development Committee