If there are noticeable differences between 'then' and 'now' it is due to a current sense of risk awareness.
To-day we are risk averse. When I flew my first solo on the 30th Sept. 1962 at Biggin Hill in a Chipmunk after six hours of dual, the phrase 'risk averse' had no meaning.
If you were serious you burnt the midnight oil with continuous study. Bill Gunston's "The Theory & Practise of Powered Flight" was my bible. Heaven knows how many times I read it before I got near a control column.
When I look back to that time and remember how trusting to the point of blase our instructors were asking us to do the things that we did, I am amazed. It wouldn't happen to-day !