Well, honestly, I don't know if I just don't get the joke or if you guys are really serious, but frankly, this "responsibility-free flying of western pilots" is just nonsense. There's a myriad of strict rules in western military aviation that have to be followed by the latter. That alledged "gun-ho attitude" is a legacy of movies from 20-30 years ago. If you willfully do something stupid & dangerous these days you will be hanged on the highest mast that can be found. Simply because it is utterly unprofessional, which is the opposite of what constitudes a militray aviator. As a pilot put through extensive and expensive training, you and your complex weapon system (the airplane) are valuable military assets wich can't just get wastet through stupidity.
That being said, military aviation is a complex and ultimately dangerous undertaking in wich you will only succeed if you're able to reliably "max-perform" your jet. And in part that also means going as low as 500, 250 or even just 100ft at up to 500+kts. If you haven't seen that in training, there's just no way you will achieve that in combat when it's night and you're actually facing deadly threads.
If a jet crashes into an apartment building shortly after T/O, it most certainly was not because the pilot was attempting a barrel roll right after take off.
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