How many people in the world are pilots?
 

You'd think a simple Google search would answer this but apparently not. What is the percentage of people in the world who are at least a Privat Pilot? How about the percentage of those who have at least soloed? I imagine it's *well* under 1.0% ...?

Sorry, only a microlighter. Private (sic!) pilot's license is well above my present budget.
So I do not count, so it can never be a significant part of the global population ,as you expected.

One " ME " :)

Dont know what you lot of pretenders are doing here in my forum :E

Pace

I guess I should have not (albeit accidentally) excluded microlight plots.

Or Birds they are pilots too :) (sorry in funny mood today)

I would think well under .01 %

Pace

No Pace I'm one too, I'm crap but I've a brown thingy that says I AM A PILOT. :E

Weird thing, I know more pilots than non-pilots, I must live in a parallel universe.

Is that before the steep turns and spins or after? :E

Pace (definately in funny mood today)

I remember reading once that fewer than 5% of the world's population had ever flown on an aircraft.
I believe there are approximately 0.5 million powered aircraft operating in the world, and even if you assume 10 pilots per aircraft that would only yield 5 million pilots (i.e. less than 0.1% of the population). I doubt that adding in glider pilots would make a big difference. Even if you factor 3 or 4 ex-pilots per active pilot you'd struggle to get anywhere near 1%.

So the stats for the UK are 30,000 active pilots for a population of 60,000,000. So i make that 0.05%.

And the US has 250,000 pilots for 250,000,000 people so thats your 0.1%.

And given these are two of the most pilot/aircraft dense countries in the world then for the 6 billion people in the world there's probably less than 1-2m pilots. (But that still a scary amount of ego for one small planet)

If you want to get into the really rare atmosphere ask how many of those 1-2 m people are willing to turn the aircraft upside down.

A pedant replies: population of the US is over 310 million.

Another pedant would also suggest that it is a bit of an assumption to say that the UK and US are the most pilot / aircraft dense countries. I'd suggest that there are other contenders like perhaps Australia.. where aircraft are practical / common transport, and they don't have that many people!

I don't believe that such an aviation hostile country as the UK has 30,000 pilots with a license that is in force.

The Centre of the Aviation Universe is North America. In addition to the large US number already quoted, Canada has 40,000 PPL or higher pilots licenses in force for a pop of around 36 Million. I would wager that the combined US/Canada total is larger than the rest of the world put together.

The CAA holds this kind of info for the UK. :ok:

Not specifically what you asked, but may give you some insight.

Statistics - Licence and Rating By Year - between 2000 / 2010 | Personnel Licensing | Safety Regulation

http://www.gliding.co.uk/bgainfo/BGA...onse1-11v2.pdf


Annex A. UK Pilots

The following table lists the estimated number of UK pilots.

Flight engineers and navigators are excluded.


Licence Holders with Valid Medical Certificates at 1st January 2008

In the UK, 43 000 pilots out of a total of 62 000 are private pilots.


Professional Licences
JAR ATPL 7,522
UK ATPL 4,886
JAR CPL 3,989
UK CPL 659
BCPL 196
JAR ATPL H 518
UK ATPL H 657
JAR CPL H 640
UK CPL HG 45
UK CPL AS 3
UK CPL B 170

Professional 19,285

Private Licences
JAA PPL A 9,003
UK PPL A 10,576
NPPL A 548
UK PPL M 33
UK PPL SLMG 19
JAR PPL H 1,572
UK PPL H 1,048
UK PPL B 66
UK PPL G 39
NPPL (Microlight) with
declaration. (BMAA data.)
3,000
SLMG and SSEA NPPLs
6
(LAA data.)
3,695
Glider pilots. (BGA data.) 8,000
Hang Gliding &
Paragliding. (BHPA data.)
6,000
Less those included twice - 548

Total private 43,051

Total UK Pilots 62,336


So it looks like about 0.1% of people in the UK are actually pilots. :8

:ok:

You can count me in that total...

Gets really old and boring after awhile though.....

"If you commit aviation and *not* at some stage of the flight become inverted you should either a) be strapped in the back of something large, with access to a drinks trolley, hosties and a choice of movies or b) be strapped at the front of same and being paid to keep it from becoming inverted, lest it upset the drinks trolley. If (a) or (b) do not apply, then you're simply wasting fuel."

Personally I got kinda bored with just going from A to B.. then finding new B's meant going much further afield, and so on. Then I discovered how much fun you can have going nowhere. Each to their own I suppose!

FWIW I had my Group A rating renewed on my NPPL this week and asked the LAA if they wanted a photocopy.

They replied that this was not necessary and when I queried this was told that the CAA didn't want to know either.

So no-one knows how many NPPL pilots are currently flying!

What does?

It makes you think we are a pretty special bunch really. ;)

and dont some of us know it. ;) ;)

Then again it is just a matter of money - it is not difficult really. I reckon you could train a monkey given enough time.

Fuji

We Could make a fortune :E: I know someone in television who would love to cover that story.

Fuji trains Monkey to solo Cessna 150.

We could get a suitable monkey male or female,you train him/her and run a television programme.
The viewing levels would be amazing and fortunes made.

PM me if serious

Dont know what we would do with the RT licence bit :E can the things talk ?
If it busts Heathrows airspace dont blame me :cool:

Pace

Wow, so a rare and small bunch indeed.

I do not think just any old monkey can do this to be honest. Let's step back and look at private pilot training for a second. You're strapping on a 30+ year old rickety 'ol aircraft that gets bounced around like a toy when a butterfly flaps its wings. You are controlling this aircraft on 4 dimensions let's say (x, y, z, and airspeed). You are using your hands and feet together to accomplish literally do-or-die maneuvers (a.k.a. final approach) in a way that is completely foreign to you. Think about being bounced all around, blown left and right on final, up and down like a roller coaster in a small single piston....you think ANYBODY could sit through that calmly? You're operating in an ever-more complex airspace system. You are operating in complete chaos (a.k.a. weather...weather is chaos even on a calm day). You are actively avoiding other air traffic (the old saying "the sky is big, you'll never hit anything" is the biggest bunch of BULL ever). In order to pass the written and oral, you have to take in a *vast* amount of material covering a very broad range. Ultimately, you need the courage (let's face it, flying is a *little* scary) and the perseverance to get through the program.

I don't think "any 'ol monkey" could do that. I think you guys truly are a special group and I hope to join your ranks in the coming months.

Dont know most Mondkeys are used to flying between the trees so should be used to it and naturals!

Hope Fuji has plenty of Bananas for the training sessions

Pace (wrecking this thread :E )

Pace,

I am honestly not quite understanding the Fuji thing at all, care to explain? :O

Well I suspect we are all amazed at some of the people who manage to get a driving licence.

Pace - yeah, I'll supply the bananas, you organise the TV crew, and we'll do it somewhere that doesnt need RT. I reckon we should be on to a winner.

Fuji is an instructor who is a forum friend I am just adding a bit of humour to this thread a light hearted tease.

The picture of Fuji training a monkey to fly amused me.

But what an idea if it was possible ?

Pace

Shame they already gave me a licence, do you think 'Monkey gets CPL' would have as much appeal?

If so I'll give you my agent's contact details.

I had my first taste of flying before I get back to England to do my PPL. A friend took me up in his Pitts S-2A for a "spin" (no pun intended), on the way back from the box he lat me fly it a bit and take it inverted. An awesome experience. I thought I was hooked on flying already, but this was so much more.

Fuji, if you want a specimen I can recommend one of my ex-students - human by genetics alone. However, based on that small sample size it would be impossible to teach a monkey to fly to solo standards...

Dont forget, who was the first astronaut......?

And I am told that when testing the effects of acceleration on the body, they strapped a sheep to the sled at Farnborough....

No doubt the sheep thought they were .....................MAAAAAD :}

How Many Pilots in the World
 

There are just over 600,000 pilots registered in the USA...

Using fuzzy math with the rest of the world having 1/3 the value of USA and then calculating for world population would put the Pilot total at between 4 and 5 million. That would be a fair bet given the growth in China and South America.

Given that RAE Farnborough had a succession of Welsh directors (to the extent that it was often said to have been run by the 'Tafia'), the above information is more than a little worrying. Was the sled actually intended to move with said sheep aboard?

Could a monkey do a better stall turn in the Yak than I could? Probably!

The really amazing thing to consider, IMO, is that in all of human history it was only from 20th century that ANYONE had the option of becoming a pilot. Countless generations looked up to the skies, observed the birds, but only very recently has it even been possible for anyone to actually 'slip the surly bonds'.

Those of us that did are indeed privileged to have been born at a time when we could. What's stopping everyone else?

And no, being pax in an airliner doesn't count, That's commuting, not flying.

If 0.1% of the population is a pilot, how many are aircraft owner?

Commercial pilots - almost none. PPLs and gliding qualification holders many more!

Diamond gliding badge - that's a small club.

Diamond badge on a glider designed before 1950, now we are getting into a really small club.

What a pointless thread. Got all the way down here and what have we learnt-pretty much zilch. This should be in JB. So perhaps I`ll start a new thread entitled "How many punctures around the world have PPL`s had on landing". I`ll start the ball rolling with one at Stapleford in 2010. :zzz:

A question for the instructors. How common is it for a student to prove simply incapable of getting a licence? Or even of going solo?

I'm not talking about failing medicals, running out of money, losing interest or just deciding they've gone as far as they wanted. Just any who turn out not to have the basic ability. I can't believe there are many.

the canadian figures given by a previous poster work out to 1 in 900 people have a pilots licence.

the figure for australia I calculated about a decade ago was 1 in 742 people have a pilots licence.

W8