P3s
I was a CRP of sorts or a P3 on Yorks in the 1950s. We had to have 4 on the flight deck for our trooping contract, for 40 Troops and one RAF AQM. After 230 hours as the fourth man, I did my "Legal Six " T/O and landings with the Chief Pilot. I was promoted to F/O. I must have been good, or impressed, because it was another 600+ hours world wide, from KIN to BKK, as the only other pilot on board, before I did another one ! (I had flown for a longer flight in a glider before my first flight in a York.)
Modern simulators must be better than the Link D2, or earlier, the Ryper Simulators I was trained with, (they were close to the present Control Tower) at Farnborough in 1945. I do not know how much they cost to run, once you have one, as opposed to what is charged per hour.
The early post war civil aircraft were "cheap to buy and dear to fly" ( Sir George Edwards said that he had sold a Viking for £ 35,000.) Now the pattern is reversed - dear to buy and cheap(ish) to fly.
Our passengers paid £75 (1952 pounds) from KIN to UK.
One of a number of French National Gliding Centres used to be between Toulouse and Carcassone. They used to be run rather like an Outward Bound set up, helped by the French Government, to encourage air mindedness...
I am impressed by the amount of ordinary Traffic which had to be available before anything had happened to AF447.