“I can’t think of another person,” Bean recalls, “let alone another astronaut, who would have just gone back to his office after ejecting a fraction of a second before getting killed.”

In his book Carrying the fire, Mike Collins says that Armstrong spent more time on decisions than any other pilot on the space program, and made more correct decisions as a result. He gave the example of Neil landing at Tranquillity with 20 seconds of fuel in the descent stage, though there was probably a bit more than that in reality.

Which is mystifying considering that American pilots were such a valuable “commodity” in terms of the amount of resources spent on pilot equipment and training, (well… until the prices for 4th, 4.5th, and 5th generation aircraft flipped that), which exceeded the value of the airframe itself. To put it another way: the pilot was worth more than the plane he/she was flying, so I’d think that I’d think that American tech would be better at preserving that.

There’s actually a great book that discusses this subject, at length: “Red Eagles: America’s Secret MiGs”, where USAF pilots flew captured/bought/stolen Soviet aircraft for top-secret ”
air-to-air ‘asymmetric’-aircraft combat training” at Groom Lake (Yes, Dreamland: Area 51), here in Nevada. 

American’s flying MiGs required a great deal ingenuity, and in some cases, acts of pure cunning, in fabricating or “acquiring” replacement parts and consumables to keep the planes in airworthy condition …without tipping-off the Soviet GRU at the same time. There is actually a lengthy description in the book on the trouble requisitions had in sourcing replacement rocket charges for the Soviet-built ejection seats, as they had to be replaced every six months for safety-purposes.

After mastering this flying deathtrap, piloting the actual lunar lander would, for all-intents-and-purposes, be easy-mode, and that’s were it counts.

If I remember right, it was said to be very unstable flying near the ground on Earth.  The full LEM however was said to be quite elegant.

Another part of the story not mentioned is after this crash, Armstrong defended continued use of the LLRV and the LLTV despite it’s dangers.

http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/LLTV-952.html 

This incident, as well as many other reasons was why Armstrong was picked for the Apollo 11 mission.

That is a hell of an image. An aged Neil Armstrong, flying gliders over rural Ohio.

And no humans have gone farther than Low Earth Orbit in nearly *40 years*.