This lack of basic skill is nothing new. When I was trained way back in the dark ages, spin training and learning to slip an aircraft was part of basics. In the late sixties and early seventies the US FAA decided to remove any pilot spin training except for the Flight Instructor test, and then it was just an endorsement that spin training had been done. The FAA did not want to be in a plane and do spins. My wife, who got her pilots license in the eighties, really never learned to slip an aircraft. I was dumb struck that she could get her private pilots license and not know a basic maneuver - the slip. I would never solo a student that had not shown me that they knew how to slip a plane since in the event of an engine failure the forward slip could mean the difference in a successful off field landing and something very different. Also, in a cross wind, you need to land in a slip in most small planes or damage the landing gear or worse. Many of the younger pilots did not get these basic skills. They depend too much on instruments and don't understand some of the basic feedback the plane is giving them. If a student pilot is afraid to stall the plane how can that student understand what the plane is doing and how to recover. I flew with many pilots that had no idea what ANDS or northerly turning error meant. This is so basic, it is actually built into FSX.

Let's see how many on this forum know ANDS  ::)

A few years back, when I had the AT-6, I was at an airshow with R.A. Bob Hoover. This is a pilot who could go from one plane to another and shut down engines and do loops and rolls - with or without engines and managed the energy so well that he could do his routine and always end up coasting to the parking spot on the airshow ramp with all engines shut down. This could be in a P-51, a Aero Commander or a Business Jet. This man learned to fly - By The Seat of His Pants! Today, that is something the new pilots never learn. Too bad!  :-[

Lou