A new post on The Robb Report notes that more Californians, Floridians, and Texans own private aircraft than residents in the other 47 states. The three are also the most active states for general aviation.
Based on data from the FAA and the General Aviation Manufacturers Association (GAMA), the report shows that No. 3 Florida had more than twice as many hours in the air as No. 4 Oklahoma.
What makes these three states so GA friendly? Weather tops the list, according to the post. The fact that these are three of the nation’s most populated states also plays a factor.
The post includes a chart with all the states and their flying activities. Check it out here to see how your home state fares.
Based on the information provided and additional information found on Wikipedia, I found some interesting information that may give a slightly different perspective on the information showing in the article
Number of Airstrips per 1000 square miles
1st New Jersey with 5.3
2nd Rhode Island with 5.2
3rd West Virginia with 4.9
48th New Mexico with 0.50
49th Nevada with 0.44
50th Wyoming with 0.42
Florida was 20th with 1.9, California was 32nd with 1.6, and Texas was 35th with 1.5 Airstrips per ever 1000 square miles.
Aircraft per 1000 people
1st Alaska with 7.9
2nd Illinois with 3.0
3rd Montana with 2.3
New Jersey, New York, and Indiana had the fewest number of aircraft with 0.3 per every 1000 people
Florida was 27th with 0.7, California was 35th with 0.5, and Texas was 26th with 0.7 aircraft per 1000 people
And finally the number of aircraft per airstrips per state.
1st Delaware with 119
2nd Florida with 115
3rd California with 82
At the low end is
48th Maine with 16
49th Alaska with 14
50th West Virginia 9
Texas was 14th with an average of 52 aircraft per airstrip.
Take a look at the number of hours flown on average per aircraft. Texas and California end up in the middle of the pack. the top 4 are Hawaii, North Dakota, Louisiana and Oklahoma all with over 200 hours each. Hawaii has 321. Texas has 112, Florida 139.8 and California 114.8. The worst is West Virginia with 58.8.
If you look also at the number of hours flown per state, Kentucky, Indiana, and Maryland log less between 2.5 hours and 3.2 hours flow for every 100 people who reside in those states. On the other end, Illinois shows 31.2 hours per 100 people, North Dakota has 43.8 hours and Alaska has a whopping 93.8 hours flown per every 100 people in the state.
Florida at 20th place flies an average of 9.9 hours, Texas is 24th with 8.1 hours and California is 31st with 6.6 hours flown for every 100 people.
A more useful statistic would be the number of planes and pilots in comparison to the general population
California has 21,000 registered airplanes and a population of 39,000,000 or 1 airplane for every 1,857 people. Alaska has 742,000 population and 5582 airplanes or 1 airplane for every 132 people.
A few years ago I attended a CFI FIRC here in Wichita. The instructor said he had just presented an AOPA FIRC in Alaska.
The FSDO in Alaska told him they HOPED to get half of all the pilots certificated someday. They also hoped to get all the airplanes registered. Maybe in California all the planes are registered, but per capita use of GA for everything is a way of life in Alaska.
Alaska is gigantic and has few roads and off-grid living hence the aircraft. This also explains why many are unlicensed and unregistered. But Alaska also has the most aviation accidents thanks to harsh weather and a lack of training for all those unlicensed pilots and aircraft self-maintained.
People per aircraft
Alaska 1 aircraft for every 126 people followed by Illinois at 332, Montana, 437 and Wyoming 437
On the other end, New Jersey with 3136, New York, 3340 and with the fewest number of aircraft per person is Indiana with 1 aircraft for every 3480 people
Texas was at 26th with 1383 and Florida with 1417 people per aircraft. California was farther down the line at 35th place and 1 aircraft per every 1872 people.
Please note: My numbers may be slightly different than others due to slightly different population data and my results are not necessarily scientific and are posted for addition insight for entertainment only. And by entertainment, I mean my entertainment as I am having a slow day at work and I have access to the internet and to Microsoft Excel.