How many pilots are there?

Peter Duniho wrote:
... There are about 650,000
certificated pilots in the US. ...

The FAA statistics at

http://api.hq.faa.gov/airmen/AIR1-97.pdf

show a drop from just over 700,000 in 1990 to just under 620,000 in
1998. 15% drop in private pilots in that period.

Has there been a resurgence in activity in the last 5 years??

Icebound wrote:

Has there been a resurgence in activity in the last 5 years??

That drop in pilot activity was the main driver behind the establishment of the
"Young Eagles" program by the EAA in 1992 and, a few years later, the "Mentor"
program by AOPA. Those certainly *should* have produced a bit of a resurgence.

George Patterson
A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something that can be learned
no other way.

In article , bangbang wrote:
Just curious - does anyone know about how many licensed pilots there
are in the US?

A query of the downloadable database shows a total of 541,598.
This includes a small number of duplicates, and does not include an
unknown number of pilots that have asked not to be listed. It does
not include pilots without current medicals. It does include student
pilots.

I believe AOPA claims membership of about 400,000 - I wonder what
percentage of licensed pilots that represents?

That would be 73.8% if all AOPA members have current medicals, which
is unlikely.