UK Statistics - Aircraft vs Pilot ratio surprisingly low

[SunnyDayInWiltshire]

Since I've been somewhat grounded by weather this month:ugh:, I've resorted to browsing various flying sites and am now plumbing the depths of the UK CAA archives:eek:.

This breakdown of registered UK GA aircraft (http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/56/UK%20reg%20cofa%20and%20weight%20group%20010110.pdf) shows about 10,000 fixed wing aircraft (out of 21,000 total which includes microlights, gliders, balloons, helicopters etc). Perhaps surprisingly, the total number has grown from about 17,500 since 2005 (reported here (http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/56/TT_COFA2005.pdf)). Of the fixed wing aircraft, around 7,500 have valid certificates or permits to fly - the other 2,500 are grounded or paperwork not yet caught up.

Meanwhile this report from March 2010 (http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/175/Flight%20Crew%20Licensing%20Transactions%20April%202009%20to %20March%202010.pdf) shows how many pilot licences have been issued/renewed during the previous 12 months. These figures understate the NPPL figures because they exclude those with a GP medical only. There are about 2,500 new PPL/NPPLs, 576 added the Night Qualification, 270 passed the IMC qualification, 34 passed the full IR - this fits with an ealier posting of mine indicating that about 20-30% of PPLs take Night Qualification, about 10% take IMC and 1% complete the full IR. A similar number of around 2,500 were issued with professional pilot qualifications, such as CPL and ATPL.

This breakdown of total flight crew licenses from Jan 2008 (http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/175/UK%20CAA%20Flight%20Crew%20Licnece%20Age%20Profile%20as%20at %201%20January%202008v2.pdf) (the most recent figures) indicates some 9,000 JAR-PPL versus 10,500 UK PPLs. You can therefore deduce that the balance is now probably reversed, since UK PPLs are no longer issued and the 3,000 JAR-PPLs issued since that report would make it 12,000 vs 10,500 before attrition is taken into account.

So there are something over 21,000 qualified private pilots (PPL/NPPL) flying around 7,500 valid GA aircraft. Presumably the other 20,000 or so commercial pilots also fly privately to some extent too. And I've omitted the NPPL/GA Medical pilots completely. Any US registered aircraft and pilots based in the UK are also excluded. So the ratio of qualified private pilots to fixed wing aircraft (excluding microlights) is perhaps around 4:1 (including NPPL), maybe 6:1 (if you include commercial pilots flying for pleasure too).

For me, these figures were surprising/enlightening because

Number of GA aircraft is on the increase (you would have thought in the current climate that wouldn't be the case)
As a new JAR-PPL, I hadn't realised that UK PPL's remain such a major contingent of qualified UK pilots today. The rate at which the licences are issued/renewed would struggle to cope with re-issuing 9,000 as EASA format should this be mandated in 2012. The size of this task was something I hadn't previously appreciated from related forum posts.
I would have expected the ratio of PPL/NPPL to active GA aircraft would have been much greater than the 4:1 or 6:1 calculated above. Many groups/share/clubs operate on much higher ratios.Corrections, omissions and comments welcome!

[IO540]

Yes, about 20k pilots who actually fly, to various degrees. That's what the CAA has said too.

I would expect a significant ratio of pilots to aircraft because the PPL sausage machine is continually churning out new PPL holders. Most of these drop out fast but the 4:1 or whatever sounds plausible. A school could well churn out 50 PPLs in a year but have just 5 planes. The owner-pilot population is in comparison very static.

The UK has a big GA scene. Germany is similar (maybe 30% bigger I would guess). France is a bit smaller than the UK. The rest of Europe is way down and some southern countries have ~ 100-200 pilots only. Some have virtually none (Croatia, Albania, etc). This is one problem we face in EASA; these almost (in GA terms) insignificant countries have the same votes, and they have a huge incentive to play ball with the EU, so they won't stick their neck out voting against something ;)

[SpeedbirdXK8]

SDIW - it is true the total number of registered aircraft has increased since 2005 however, you neglect to mention that the number has reduced by 268 since 2009. The largest reduction being 140 balloons followed closely by -72 microlights and -67 helicopters and -30 fixed wing. What is interesting is the increase of Gliders + 48.

[Whopity]

The rate at which the licences are issued/renewed would struggle to cope with re-issuing 9,000 as EASA format should this be mandated in 2012. 2 years ago they managed to reissue every current licence just to put English Proficiency on it; hit the button and the computer generates them, all you need is a signature and a few temps to put them into envelopes. New licence issues have to be checked, a much more demanding task than reissuing current licences. A minor task compared to inspecting 300+ PPL schools and all the gliding clubs in the UK.

[ProfChrisReed]

Most of the 2,300 gliders are not flown by PPLs. So your ratio is PPLs to 7,700 fixed wing a/c, thus making the disparity even greater.