Sorry, but your suffering from the tech mindset, traditional engineering and manufacturing is a different skill set and many of your assumptions are off.

I encourage people to tinker with modern electronics and software, it's usually harmless and you can learn easily. That's not the case with air crafts and air travel. You need to learn BEFORE doing. Getting interested in flying and airplanes is probably the most dangerous thing for modern dilettantes, maybe tinkering with explosives is more dangerous.