> It doesn’t seem like aviation became safer because pilots took risks That's pretty much the job of test pilots even today. They are usually dual trained pilo

> It doesn’t seem like aviation became safer because pilots took risks That's pretty much the job of test pilots even today. They are usually dual trained pilots and engineers/technicians, and their job is basically to QA new planes. In military aviation especially test pilots are often feeders into the astronaut program (a different but similar type of daredevil).