On Friday, October 16, 2020 at 3:49:26 PM UTC-6, Ramy wrote:
Since the numerator is known and relatively accurate, the only way to come up with such optimistic statistics is by significantly inflating the denominator. I’ve seen 10,000 and even 20,000 in the denominator when the actual number of active pilots is significantly less. Those numbers often count anyone who is still SSA member even if they haven’t flown in years. I believe we have less than 5000 active glider pilots in the US. By active It means flying at least once per year. If you don’t fly in a particular year you shouldn’t be counted in a yearly statistic calculation.

Ramy

Can't comment on the number of active glider pilots. Many are SSA members, many rating holders are not. There are a few clubs that are not affiliated with the SSA and account for a few hundred pilots that aren't SSA members though 10-30% of those pilots may be SSA members. Most non-SSA pilots fly with the slowly diminishing number of commercial operations. It's been a few years since I looked, but there were over 6,000 foreign pilots that held US glider ratings. Part of the problem with the publicly releasable data is that pilots who've withheld their addresses are not included in the downloadable file. Busy instructors and operations looking at the charts don't agree with the FAA numbers, but haven't been formally surveyed, so it's just an impression. I've built these into an extended worksheets available here for 1990-2019. However, the Google view flips the chart, so it better to open with Google sheets (no color in ratings trend chart) or download a copy to use Excel or Libreoffice/Openoffice Calc.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1868...ew?usp=sharing

Frank Whiteley