Yes. What’s so hard about it is the level of complication, multi-engine planes are hideously complicated devises that the pilot has an extreme high level of control over. Imagine if with just the flick of some switches you could change every single aspect of how your cars wheels interacted with the road, individually, on the fly, and you HAD to do that in order to drive. Then add being able to change how body of the car was shaped, altering your aerodynamic signature to the point where you can actually steer it... in 3 dimensions. That’s life in a multi-engine plane. Then add the ability to do all without being able to look out the windows, that’s instrument rated.
I used to have a computer boot sequence that required almost a kibuki-dance of flipping switches and pushing buttons.
Of course, nobody was going to die if I got it wrong. :-)
Are they harder than military jets? I know military jets are hard to fly, but it is my understanding that we have managed to teach non-college-educated people how to do it.
I have no doubt there is a lot of learning to fly a jet, but it still seems like it’s a lot of rote learning. A pilot doesn’t have to come up with a new WAY of flying, right, just learn how every other pilot would throw all the switches and set all the settings for a particular circumstance?
Maybe my distinction isn’t obvious. Maybe most pilots could, with the proper college education, do any other job they wanted as well. I just haven’t known anybody who said they wanted to be a pilot, who came back months later and said they failed at it because they weren’t smart enough.