Poll: How many hours in your logbook?

How many hours in your logbook?

  • 0-50

    Votes: 17 5.2%

  • 50-100

    Votes: 35 10.6%

  • 100-150

    Votes: 28 8.5%

  • 150-250

    Votes: 41 12.5%

  • 250-400

    Votes: 36 10.9%

  • 400-650

    Votes: 29 8.8%

  • 650-1000

    Votes: 32 9.7%

  • 1000-1500

    Votes: 25 7.6%

  • 1500-2000

    Votes: 10 3.0%

  • 2000-5000

    Votes: 36 10.9%

  • 5000-10000

    Votes: 21 6.4%

  • 10000+

    Votes: 19 5.8%
  • Total voters
    329
Jim_R

Jim_R

Pattern Altitude
Joined
Feb 17, 2010
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Display name:
Jim
I know a lot of student pilots solo, but never get their ticket.

I know a lot of private pilots get their ticket, then hardly ever fly again.

I know a lot of private pilots fly quite a bit for a short while after getting their ticket, then taper off to little or nothing.

I know a lot of pilots go on to have aviation careers and fly regularly and frequently.

I'd be curious to know what the distribution of total hours flown is across the pilot population. (I'd be further curious to see it broken down by pilot age, by how long a pilot's held a certificate, by highest rating, and all sorts of other criteria as well.)

Do such data exist, and are they publicly available for review?
 
None. I have numbers in my logbook. :)
 
The insurance companies would have this data. I don't know if they have ever released it though.
 
I keep 3 logbooks. Civilian, Air Force, Air Force pilot training
 
It would be awfully difficult to obtain logbook information on people when the logbook isn't required to be recorded in any fashion aside from currency records or endorsements. I've got less than 60TT, despite having obtained my PPC in '09. Of those hours, 41 occurred from training, the other handful have been spaced out between a short flight or two per year and some BFRs. Time and money rule all.
 
Jim_R said:
I know a lot of private pilots get their ticket, then hardly ever fly again.
Click to expand...

I was one of these. Got my ticket right before college, flew a little bit, then got out of the habit for twenty years. Now I'm just shy of 200 hours. If I'd flown at my recent pace from the time I got my ticket until now, I'd have a lot more...
 
Almost 3000 and still enjoying every minute,took 20 years off when I was younger. Love doing long cross country's.
 
I just finished a log book this week, and totaled up the time to start the new one. In the last 18 years I have flown 10,013.2 hours. I am guessing a 0.2% margin of error. About 7 years ago I found a mistake in transfering numbers from one page to the next. I went with the lower number, then added a statement saying an error has been found and correction made to show actual flight time.

I used to fly about 1200 hours a year in Alaska. When I went into air ambulance that lowered to about 350 hours a year. Now as owner it looks like I will average about 150 hours a year. Next year we are planning big changes in the company and I will no longer be a line pilot. I am not sure if I will even take pt 135 checkrides anymore.

As I typed that I felt a strange gnawing inside. So I think I will keep current and take flights when I can.
 
Cirrus captures usage data across the fleet from Maintenance records. They're trying to encourage more data collection during annual inspections. The FAA isn't biting, which seems odd that any Gov't agency wouldn't jump at the chance to collect data regardless of the usefulness or lack thereof of said data.
 
Total hours are reported in every medical. This data has to exist, at least at that time.

For us old farts, it's no more than two years old. One for commercial pilots, 0.5 for ATPs.
 
MAKG1 said:
Total hours are reported in every medical. This data has to exist, at least at that time.

For us old farts, it's no more than two years old. One for commercial pilots, 0.5 for ATPs.
Click to expand...

And 5 years out of date for some of us...which remind me, I need to schedule a 3rd class medical exam in a couple months :lol:
 
MAKG1 said:
Total hours are reported in every medical. This data has to exist, at least at that time.
Click to expand...

I wonder if this data would be obtainable via a FOIA request. Maybe someone with a University grant study could request it from FAA Aeromedical...for statistical study purposes, of course.
 
Great bands selected by the OP. That's a pretty even distribution.
 
Jim_R said:
I know a lot of student pilots solo, but never get their ticket.

I know a lot of private pilots get their ticket, then hardly ever fly again.

I know a lot of private pilots fly quite a bit for a short while after getting their ticket, then taper off to little or nothing.

I know a lot of pilots go on to have aviation careers and fly regularly and frequently.
Click to expand...
you forgot a category: pilots who haven't bothered to write much in a logbook for years except what is required for currency
 
Henning said:
I don't, to me they all are.
Click to expand...

The 300 hour mark: You think you finally know how to fly an airplane.

I did.

But now that I've gone a thousand hours past that mark, I realize that I was mistaken, and am still learning how to fly with each subsequent flight.
:yes:
 
Started flying roughly 6 months ago. Currently 102.1hrs. Should be going up fairly rapidly once I start my IR training at the end of the month.
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
I actually didn't get very far through the book.
It is the only book about flying that was dryer than the FAR AIM
Click to expand...

Synopsis of book: pilots without much experience and out of the training environment tend to hurt themselves more than pilots with more experience

Lotta words wasted by the author saying that. What is needed are practical recommendations on how to fix it but that is a tough nut to crack. My suggestion is to update the "book learnin' " part of things. We do a good job teaching the monkey skills of pushing the levers and buttons but do a lousy job of teaching the mental skills of assessing weather and making good decisions. My last flight review was with a very experienced instructor and he seemed more concerned with mechanical skills than with decision making. When I fly with line pilots they seem much more concerned with how I handle situations, not so much with how smooooothly I land the airplane....and I thank them for that training (Mari, Teller).
 
As others have noted, the spread is farily uniform across the bins I selected.

After 167 responses, one thing surprises me:

Only 4 people in the 0-50 range? Considering that we have frequent "passed my checkride" posts, I would have guessed a larger number of folks in this category.

Almost half the respondents fall in the 0-400hr range, with 25% of those in the 150-400 range.

About a quarter of respondents have more than 2000 hours.

Seems like a fair bit of flight experience represented, which matches the impression I've gathered from observing the various discussions here.

Wonder how that compares to the pilot population at large? I would expect there to be more of a ski-jump distribution, with a much higher number of folks in the low-hour ranges.
 
If the bins were evenly spaced, I suspect you'd see a lognormal distribution weighted closer to the low end.
 
Over 230 TT. Haven't tallied my most recent page in my logbook.
 
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