Is it airmanship to follow SOP's someone asked?Not in itself no,although many of the principles are coincident.
You must have all flown with pilots who say and do things on the flight deck in a very dogmatic way.Passing x thousand feet,they do z and say y,and this is so engrained in them that they'll even sub-consciously disregard a call from ATC just so that they can repeat this little routine at this set time.When the descent starts,they put the signs on precisely at that moment.They do things in a very set regimented manner.They always brief at the same time and they say the exact same things in the exact same order.Or the guy/gal who sits there twiddling their thumbs waiting for transition altitude before performing the after takeoff checks.The procedure says when altimeters are set,perform the checklist and by God thats what they're going to do.Or the guy who accepts immediate takeoff clearance behind a 757 just because the Company SOP screwed up and classified at as medium.Or the pilot who taxis at 29 knots when asked to expedite a backtrack for landing traffic.The manual says max taxi speed is 30 knots so thats what he does.This is the "Pavlov-dog" type pilot;they need a manual for everything,even what time of day to take a sh*t.I recognize many of this type right here on this forum,they're not easy to miss.