More's the pity because those were the days of real airmen rather than the flight deck automation managers of today...
Well this "flight deck automation manager" has done one, admittedly not in a big jet and not down to 300ft, and many others have also.
Does this make us Real Airmen - whatever that is?
And of course today's airline pilots read Ernest K Gann.
Think a little harder about conditions in those days. Few airports, no radar, few navigation aids, unreliable weather forecasts, unreliable aircraft - and if you needed to get in somewhere with nowhere else to go and radio range was all there was, as pigboat says of course you would go down to whatever was necessary. What alternative was there?
I'm sure Gann tells it exactly the way it was.
.........It just wasn't like that
every day!