Interesting read... NY MAG "My Aircraft"

I'll admit, I'm of two minds about the article. On the one hand, I agree that there are changes in the way current airline pilots are trained/selected, but I'm not sure that the overall conclusion: that 'airmanship' (for lack of a better word) is being bred out of current pilots by the job's increasing automation. I'd have been in the post-Vietnam pool of pilots had I gone into commercial aviation, and yet I started flying in gliders precisely for what it taught me about 'stick and rudder' flight. A good friend who is the same age and who went into the airlines did the same. And a number of his colleagues in the airlines -- of all ages -- either started or have taken up flying sailplanes both for the sheer enjoyment of glider flight and for what it teaches them/us about flying.

I think what makes one a good aviator is the desire to fly, learn about flying, and put the skills/lessons learned to use. To be sure, as the job becomes more automated, there may be an emphasis toward learning different elements of flight (systems and procedures), but that's equally part of flying certain aircraft. It is easy to overlook the 'systems aspect' in some of the stories of survival (as we marvel at the pilots' responses), but, for the pilot who lost the cabin door knew that the manual called for a firewall shut-off of the damaged engines, and that performing that shut-down would compromise the functioning of his hydraulics. Airmanship helped, but knowing the aircraft systems was equally vital.

And, lest we forget, military aviation has become no less 'systems centered' than commercial aviation. Nor can it always be said that the military wants daredevil pilots: Samuel Hynes, a WWII aviator, wrote a wonderful memoir of flight training and coming of age during the '40s (_Flights of Passage_), in which, among other things, he noted that the true 'hot shot' pilots - the ones who would buzz lower and fly more recklessly than others -- often didn't get sent to combat because they were considered too risky!