The airplanes people first learn to fly have hardly changed since then, with, I would say, tricycle undercarriage being the biggest change, followed by more doc

The airplanes people first learn to fly have hardly changed since then, with, I would say, tricycle undercarriage being the biggest change, followed by more docile stall/spin characteristics, in particular in being less likely to drop a wing in a stall. After that: engine reliability. I occasionally read accounts of flying the first generation of airplanes (or replicas), and it does seem to have been rather different then, not so much in first principles as in the craft of making it work. If I am remembering this correctly, some pilots of piston-engined transport aircraft had difficulty transitioning to jet airliners, a problem addressed by an influential and well-regarded book (Davies, "Handling the Big Jets", 1967?)[1] which, among other things, recommended putting aside the "throttle for height, stick for speed" principle. [1] See, for example, https://www.flightglobal.com/FlightPDFArchive/1967/1967%20-%200708.PDF https://www.flightglobal.com/FlightPDFArchive/1967/1967%20-%...