From what I've been told by fixed wing pilots, flying a plane isn't really that hard. At least one baggage handler stole a commercial passenger aircraft recently and flew it out, including acrobatics.
Flying one in a safe manner and following all the rules can be pretty difficult however. For example there is an area near me that is from the air as boring as any other part of Texas. It's controlled airspace because it is the Bush Family Ranch. The secret service will investigate you if you fly over it.
Landing the airplane in a way that you don't damage the airplane or yourself is another matter entirely.
You can also easily get yourself killed through a stall/spin, flying into IMC/bad weather, etc.
A lot of pilot training is how to plan for weather, check performance, handle emergencies, and not create chaos for everyone else.
Flying is easy to those for whom it's become second nature. At first it's really very difficult to get the plane to do (and keep doing) what you want (or what ATC instructs). At some point, you realize that you're holding a heading and altitude without really thinking about it, while doing a several other things. I think it really depends on who you ask and a whole host of other variables just how easy flying is.
The hard things about flying any plane are
1. Landing.
2. Knowing what to do when things go wrong. Any time you read about jets avoiding near collisions, landing in heavy crosswinds, landing safely after engine failure, etc etc, you have many checklists and years of rigorous training to thank for that.
Landing is tough because it’s somewhat counterintuitive. You need to maintain enough airspeed to avoid a stall but obviously you need to slow down to lose altitude and, you know, stop.
Yeah. I've been in an A320 simulator before for a few hours. They are pretty easy to fly and land. What isn't easy is getting one in a state ready to fly and to the runway. I can fly a Cessna 172 (didn't get enough solo hours for PPL though) and it's not difficult. Again prep is the hardest bit.
Oh yeah for larger jet aircraft certainly it is. I read that apparently the SR-71 preflight was so big it was performed by a backup crew and the primary crew had the option to simply jump in and fly if the timetable required it. But a small single engine aircraft isn't nearly as bad
Is the SR-71 the one that leaked fuel until it had warmed up and that required another jet engine to be attached to it to act as a starter motor?
It actually used a pair of V8 car engines as a starter
The latter is quite normal. There is an APU in most commercial jet aircraft.
Flying is easy. Taking off is easy. Landing is tricky.
Never got far past my PPL decades ago (less than 100 hours total iirc) but landing was always such a fun dance in Pipers and Cessnas, slipping the plane into the cross-wind to line up the plane at the last moment before touching done.
What’ll it take to get you back in the air?
A 40-year younger body :-) I'm blind in one eye nowadays; highly doubt I could pass the medical. It was a fun hobby in my 20s, though.