Most pilots know that the test of an airplane’s dynamic stability is to trim for a specific hands-off speed, increase or decrease pitch to a faster or slower speed, then let go of the stick and measure the time it takes to resume the hands-off speed. It’s my contention that seeking its demographic stability is what the U.S population has been doing since 1980, when it peaked at 827,000 active aviators. That also happens to be the year that the last Baby Boomers, born in 1964, became old enough to solo.
Working in round numbers, the first of 76 million Baby Boomers were born in 1946. They were old enough to get a private certificate in 1963. I wasn’t able to find the number of active pilots that year, but it probably wasn’t much more than 1964’s 431,000. Certainly, we Boomers aren’t the sole source of the rapidly increasing population, but as were in other facets of the American demographic landscape, we were the dominant variable.
As we came of age, the pilot population blossomed like flowers in spring. By 1969, when Boomers ranged in age from 23 to 5, there were 720,000 pilots. Over the next decade the population climbed in five-figure steps to its peak in 1980, when they ranged from 36 to 16. The decline that started then is, most likely, the retirement of pilots of the Greatest Generation, born between 1901 and 1924, and the so-called Silent Generation, born between 1925 and 1945.
And now it’s our turn. Until 2005, given a point or two fluctuation, Boomers accounted for more than half of the pilot population. That changed in 2006, when the first Boomers turned 60. After our self-inflicted economic melt-down, the Boomer’s representation fell to 43 percent of all pilots. In 2011, it was 40 percent. With 8,000 of us turning 60 every day, and the uncertain financial world in which we one day hope to retire, I expect this trend will continue with increasing speed.
Where the pilot population will find its demographic stability is anyone’s guess. Looking at the succeeding generations and their financial futures and opportunities, my guess is 300,000 or less.
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