How many pilots, ever?

No stats to support this, but I seem to remember reading here in the past
that out of all the individuals who get a student license, 90% drop out.
Out of those that get the PPL, 90% stop flying after 5 years.

I remember reading that too, I guess its possible. If 200,000 got
their PPLs this year in the US, then it would mean there were about 2
million student pilots, not outside the realms of plausibility.
I think there was another stat about how some pilots never flew again
after passing their checkrides.

So what your talking about is the standard loser's excuse "I could do it
if I wanted to, but I just don't want to".

Not exactly, for e.g., I don't go skydiving even though I am pretty
confident I could learn to skydive if I wanted to but I am just not
interested. Likewise there are lots of people who are not losers and
who don't want to be pilots.

Just to say, since 1903, maybe 4 or 5 million people worldwide have learned
how to fly.

How did you come to that number, Jim?

Maybe 3 million are still alive today. World populations is 5
billion, so a pilot is less than 1 of a thousand.

And if you figure all the humans who have *ever* lived (and yearned to
fly), pilots are an incredibly tiny percentage. We truly are lucky
to be alive today!
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

I'm not sure you can get how many billions of humans have ever lived, but
you should be able to get annual new birth record counts since 1903 when
Orville & Wilber started this whole thing in the US... It might be equally
as interesting to compare to the number of humans who had the opportunity
to learn to fly... You might want to go back to 1884 or something (kids
born in 1889 would have been 17 in 1903)...

Ha -- found it! Ain't the internet grand?

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

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

If we use Jim Macklin's (unverified) 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. The 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"

I don't feel learning to fly is a big deal. Not many do it, perhaps
because of the expense, or it just isn't mainstream.

Harder to do, and to me is a bigger deal, yet is very common; get a good
university education.

It makes me remember the old joke, "How can you tell if there is a pilot
in the room.....Don't worry he will tell you."

It is a big accomplishment for anybody to do. Jay is justifiably proud.

I have seen many 16 and 17 year olds learn to fly. Males, and females
alike. Always funny seeing parents drive their child in for a lesson
like a solo cross country. But they aren't allowed to drive yet.

I suppose there is a mystique to it, but I never entered a Formula One
race either. It is an accomplishment but I hope there will be many
larger ones in everybodies future.









wrote:
So what your talking about is the standard loser's excuse "I could do it
if I wanted to, but I just don't want to".


Not exactly, for e.g., I don't go skydiving even though I am pretty
confident I could learn to skydive if I wanted to but I am just not
interested. Likewise there are lots of people who are not losers and
who don't want to be pilots.

They said on some educational show, that at any given time there is
approximately 250,000 people aloft in aircraft, the world over.

Jim Logajan wrote:

Jay Honeck wrote:

In short, I thought it would be neat to figure out how many pilots
have EVER flown, since 1903. It's easy to get the number of US pilots
year-by-year, but (of course) these include duplicates over time.
Therefore, I'm stumped.

Any ideas how to tabulate this figure?


Not a clue about worldwide, but for the U.S. one can make a "reasonable"
estimate based on FAA stats at this link:

http://www.faa.gov/data_statistics/a...atistics/2006/

Table 17 in particular seems to suggest that, excluding student pilot
certificates, ~25,000 private certificates were issued each year for the
last 10 years. I'd use that amount as an average and multiply it by ~60
to get on the order of at least ~1.5 million private pilot certificates
ever issued in the U.S.

Just my attempt at a swag.

I don't feel learning to fly is a big deal. Not many do it, perhaps
because of the expense, or it just isn't mainstream.

Harder to do, and to me is a bigger deal, yet is very common; get a good
university education.

It's funny, I feel just the opposite. I found college to be simply a
normal progression after high school, with no real extra effort
required other than more of the same old same old...

Maybe it's got something to do with the age at which you earned your
wings? For me, learning to fly took place while I was working full-
time, in a new house, with a toddler and a newborn at home. Money and
time were extremely tight.

Worse, by age 35 I was out of "school" mode, and getting back into
studying and homework was very difficult for me. Passing my checkride
was a truly great day, and I've always been as proud (or prouder) of
my ticket as I am of my sheepskin.

I suppose there is a mystique to it, but I never entered a Formula One
race either. It is an accomplishment but I hope there will be many
larger ones in everybodies future.

Well, the local newspaper is interviewing Joe tomorrow -- so
apparently *they* think it's a pretty rare achievement, too.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

It's funny, I feel just the opposite. I found college to be simply a
normal progression after high school

That's the thing. College is something that's "on the road ahead".
Just keep going. But learning to fly is something you need to make a
special effort to decide to do. That's what sets it apart.

Once you've decided to do it, it's not really all that hard.

Jose
--
You can choose whom to befriend, but you cannot choose whom to love.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
...

Well, the local newspaper is interviewing Joe tomorrow -- so
apparently *they* think it's a pretty rare achievement, too.
--


Won't that depend on the salary offered? I hope they don't offer him less
than starting pay for a commuter pilot.

Once you've decided to do it, it's not really all that hard.

I agree, although some people find it insurmountably difficult.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"