I'm speaking from complete ignorance here, but why couldn't the airline industry standardize a bit more? It seems that a pilot has to have special high-intensity training on each individual aircraft model, whereas I can jump in pretty much any car from here to Hong Kong and be able to control the machine safely after a ~60 second glance at the dash and steering column. Yes, I understand that adding that extra third-dimension of travel (up and down, in addition to forward-back and left-right) adds complexity, but I have a hard time believing that a standardized control interface for aircraft of X-class engine size wouldn't increase safety.