Japan's elite pilot standards shrank its replacement pool

How should Japan have reformed its naval pilot training and allocation system?

It needed a larger intake, more instructors drawn from combat units, room for competent rather than perfect trainees, and flexible allocation of aircraft and crews.

Pilots below the very top of a class could still improve rapidly after entering operational service. Graduates who knew they were not elite might also exercise more caution than celebrated trainees whose confidence encouraged unnecessary risks. Japan's extreme selectivity therefore discarded a large pool of aviators who could have become capable wartime replacements. A sustainable system also required rotating veterans into training and reallocating aircraft rather than leaving them idle when their carrier was damaged.