They do most things more intensely
Yes, we have also been asked, officially, at the Jung Institute whether we could not send somebody to do something about the fact that most airmen do not want to fly after they have reached the age of thirty. That is a great problem, for it takes considerable time to train a man as a really good pilot. One could say that it would be just about when they are thirty and have become really good and experienced pilots that then, generally, there comes a crisis. There are sudden neurotic fears, or they do not want to continue flying and want to give it up, and if they are forced to continue, they crash, due to their resistance. <…> Swissair cannot get enough pilots and at present employ more foreigners than Swiss, not because there are not enough applicants, for there are large numbers, but the very severe tests prove that about forty to fifty per cent of the young men who want to become pilots are neurotic mother-complex people whom it would not be safe to employ. Therefore the Swiss do extensive testing and refuse such applicants, with the result that they do not have enough pilots. If they took the men on they would have the same problem as the Americans; that is, the men would work till thirty and then leave, just when all the money and time had been spent on their training. So this is a real problem of our time, which goes right into very practical issues.<…> In fact, Americans should be quite happy that so many of their pilots want to give up flying at the age of thirty. It shows that at that age many of them pull out of the puer aeternus attitude; although it is bad for the Army, it is a good sign. I would never take on the job of trying to persuade those men that they should go on flying, because their not wanting to do so might be a healthy symptom. If anybody could ever give me really useful information on the point, I would like to know what the Russians do about it, how it works with them. I have no idea about that.
Remark: The moon pilots whom we are training in the United States are all in their late thirties, but the moon pilots whom the Russians are training are at least five and possibly ten years younger, so I would assume that they must begin their training earlier and make it more intensive than we do, just as they do most things more intensively.
Marie-Louise von Franz, The Problem of Puer Aeternus, 1959-1960