Re: Tom Knauff's newsletter

I did the annual re****t on glider pilot trends for the SSA world
re****t for 2007.  The FAA stats on US glider pilot ratings are just
estimates, which aren't adjusted until about April of the following
year.  At that point there was about decline of about 2,000 from the
one January number, and about 400 lower than my guessimate.  We are
losing many senior glider rated, and mostly inactive, pilots each
year.  The more appalling statistic was the lowish number of new
glider only ratings and the very low number of add-on ratings.

That said, requiring CFI's to input flight review dates would help us
really understand our activity and only add one or two fields to the
database.  Since many take their FR's in other aircraft types, it
would mean capturing those dates for all pilots.  It might meet with
some resistance and only slightly clarify our perspective, since many
may not exercise their glider rating.

As we no longer require the use of the SSN with the pilot's license, I
don't see any simple method for the FAA to cull their records by using
the other SSA's death records.

You can find all sorts of statistics to justify about any perspective.

Frank Whiteley

On Jul 5, 8:20=A0am, "Wayne Paul" <wa...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> As Andy noted, the FAA does not systematically collect glider pilot
relat=
ed
> flight data. =A0This is also true for Ultra-light, balloon, and the
rapid=
ly
> growing S****t Pilot communities.
>
> Without knowing the number of flights and flight hours, it is very
diffic=
ult
> to develop meaningful statistical based risk analysis.
>
> There is even a problem using the FAA database to identify the number of
> pilots with a specific rating. =A0It appears from doing a couple "spot
ch=
eck"
> that pilots who have died are not being removed. =A0So, currently the
onl=
y way
> to identify active pilots is to identify those with active medicals. The
> only solution that I can think of is for the FAA to start recording
biann=
ual
> flight review dates. A pilot's flight history could be part of the
biannu=
al
> re****t.
>
> Wayne
> HP-14 "Six Foxtrot"http://www.soaridaho.com/
>
> "Andy" <a.dur...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
>
>
news:ac54e481-3cbc-4b9e-bbb0-4f59ab356e26@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> On Jul 4, 4:56 pm, Jim Logajan <Jam...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>
> I think that for a meaningful risk analysis the number of fatalities
> should be compared to either the hours of risk exposure, or the number
> of risk exposure events. =A0This means either the number of flights, or
> the number of flight hours, should be used rather than the number of
> people qualified to participate.
>
> FAA atempts to gather data on power pilots flight hours at every
> medical exam. =A0That data is not collected for pilots with only a
> glider rating.
>
> Andy