Data Request
 

How can I find out how many licensed helicopter pilots there are in the world?

G.:ok:

Pay me £50 grand a year and I'll go round and count them personally. Should be back in about a decade. :)

Failing that an FOI request to the CAA for the UK numbers should work but for the Seychelles and the Maldives I still think you're going to need me and my abacus.

YOP
 

Will have to defer on the offer but maybe one of the organisations representing helicopters has a handle on such number, HAI, BHA??

If the folk out there had a handle on their own national numbers then maybe I could then hazard a guess at the grand total?

G. :ok:

a very quick google search
 

2008
United States Population : 307,645,336
Active Pilots PPL or higher : 529,882 (Not counting student certificates)
Active Rotorcraft Pilots PPL or higher: 34,822


If my math is right:
.1% of Americans are pilots.
7% of pilots are rotorcraft pilots.
.01% of Americans are rotorcraft pilots.

Grumps
 

Thanks, I found that data as well - good old FAA! The number I am looking for is for commercial helicopter pilots so I reckon that is around 22,000 which is 0.007% of the US population.

If you factor that to take account of the fact that the US is probably the most aviation oriented country in the world then we could have a global number closer to say 0.001% (China and India being the most populous but arguably with the least aviation oriented percentage).

If we take the global population at 7 billion (7,000,000,000) then 0.001% produces the number 70,000.

That about as good a guess as possible I reckon.

G.

Germany:
1470 ATP(H)/CPL(H) in 81.000.000 people, that's 0.000018% or 1.8 pilots per 100.000 people compared to 8.1 in the US.
To keep numbers simple.
Number of registered helicopters = 745. That's a whopping 1.97 pilots per machine...

Edith says the FAA's 2014 numbers are out: https://www.faa.gov/data_research/av...en_statistics/

According to Table 7 there are 26100 ATP/COM.

There are about 14,000 helicopters registered in the USA so double that and you have a figure close to the 22,000 registered helicopter pilots and not a million miles from the German figure listed below by Goodgrief.

So I would multiply by 1.5 then by 2 the world helicopter fleet to get a possible spread.

How to get the figures?

Rotorspot ROTORSPOT - Rotorcraft Registrations Database (Worldwide) has current registrations for almost every country with a total for that country at the top of the list.

Eric
 

You are a star!

One additional important fact has been donated by my statistically literate daughter who showed me the text book data on representative sampling. The key is that for target population sizes in excess of 10,000 and a scientifically acceptable margin if error of 5% the sample size needs to be 370 minimum.

I now have the crucial data that I need for next month's RAeS Conference talk.

Thanks to all.

G. :ok:

Where's the million miles off?

Sorry Goodgrief the English isn't great as I edited several times in a hurry.
My intention was just to say that your figure of approx 2 to 1 is a good number to work off.
With the American figure being about 1.5 to 1. By using both you should get a reasonable spread that would probably not be a million miles from the actual world figure. Even so just an approximation.

The U.S. government
 

The Unites States government owns and operates another nearly 7,000 helicopters. They are not registered with the FAA in most cases. Hawks, Apaches etc. A lot of the pilots are commercially rated with the FAA.

Border Patrol, ICE, FBI, USFS, five military branches

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...itary_aircraft

Data Analysis
 

My expert advisor tells me that we don't need to know the absolute figure (number of commercially active helicopter pilots in the world) for there is a 'rule of thumb' accepted as 'scientific methodology'. If the target population is greater than 10,000 then you only need to fly with 370 of them to provide sufficient data on the whole population with an accuracy of +or - 5%.

As my intention is to attempt to quantify the skill and knowledge levels of the (helicopter pilot ) population at large this sample will be quite adequate.

From the analysis I believe we can say that the global pilot licensing systems are to a great extent weak and ineffective with isolated pockets of excellence and contrary pockets of "how the hell did that person ever get a license?"

That's all for now.... off to buy a new set of body armour.......:E

G.