When you are at the controls, and in charge of other people's lives, you don't break the rules to 'show off'. Every military pilot knows this. There is the famous story of a kid in Navy Flight training that was considered to be the best flier anyone had ever seen. Everyone was sure this kid was going to be the best fighter pilot that the Navy ever produced. On his last training flight, the kid performed an unauthorized barrel roll.
His class standing was dropped from 1st to last in the section, and he never saw the inside of a fighter jet, and left the military at his first opportunity. You don't screw around with the hardware. You can die and take a lot of folks with you. No excuses.
I agree with you to a certain extent but the heroes of tomorrow are also the risk takers of today.
"When you are at the controls, and in charge of other people's lives, you don't break the rules to 'show off'."
In Army Aviation culture the command pilot has complete control of the aircraft. If the junior pilot objects to a stunt - almost always nothing happens - if a crew chief objects then for sure nothing will happen.
Considering that everyone's life is on the line then supreme power leads to supreme stupidity.
B-T-W in Vietnam the Aussies flew with a crew of 4 in a UH-1 but all were qualified pilots and they took turns flying rotating days. It appeared that they didn't screw around since it was their culture to work as a team rather than supreme commander and underlings.