Speaking of military matters: The Russian Mi28 tactical helicopter; the unusual training of WW2 Japanese pilots

It should be remembered that three Japanese carriers were bombed and set aflame first, with one going untouched until later in the battle (Hiryu). Consequently there were no planes in the air except for the CAP when the Enterprise dive bombers caught the first three re-arming and refueling and sank them. Most of the pilots from those three carriers were rescued by other ships, although some were indeed badly injured or killed by the explosions and fires that ended up sinking the three carriers. Hiryu sent a full strike after the US carriers, and ultimately caught Yorktown, damaging but not sinking her (it was a submarine that ultimately sank Yorktown). Hiryu was caught and destroyed while that strike was still in the air, so that was the only flight for which returning flyers were in the air (along with the CAP from the other three) and had no place to land. Most of these landed in the water and were rescued by escorting cruisers and destroyers; it is not true that the Japanese lost most of their highly trained pilots (and other aircrew) at Midway. In addition to all those rescued, they had the surviving pilots from Shokaku and Zuikaku, which were not at Midway as a consequence of aircrew losses from one at Coral Sea and damage to the other at the same battle. So, in the aftermath of Midway, the Japanese had two fleet carriers (the two not at Midway) left from the original Kido Butai, and some smaller carriers, plus others building (especially Taiho), with most of their trained aircrews. The real depletion of the IJN air crews, especially pilots, happened during the long battle of attrition in the Solomons, including the carrier battles of Santa Cruz and Eastern Solomons, but also almost daily combat over Guadalcanal for several months, during which the US planes based at Henderson Field had only short flights to combat, and if shot down surviving pilots were mostly easily rescued, whereas Japanese pilots starting at Rabaul arrived with little gas left for combat before making the long return flight to base; many of those not shot down ran out of fuel on the way back and went down in the water and were not rescued, and those shot down and not killed near Guadalcanal were likewise not rescued by the IJN. It was this that killed the IJN pilot corps, together with their practice of not rotating experienced pilots back to train new ones, instead leaving them in combat units until they were killed or captured.

What, exactly, do you think happened to IJN aircraft that did not have a serviceable carrier deck to land on in the middle of the Pacific Ocean?

Turning off the snark for a moment, the IJN never had a consistent doctrine as to rescue of downed pilots. If a IJN captain was feeling in the mood the pilot would be picked up (if the vessel did not have better things to do). This, as you might imagine resulted in the loss of innumerable well trained flight crew that, it turned out, the Japanese simply could not replace.

Suburo Sekai (the highest surviving Japanese ace) calculated that 1% (going up to 3–5% as the war progressed) of planes that took off for a maximum range engagement in the Pacific did not return regardless if there was any engagement. In the huge Pacific expanses the planes just did not return. That might not sound so bad but if you were flying one sortie per day that meant that you would be missing/dead in three months even if you never saw an enemy aircraft. Japan lost the air war by late 1942 as it lost its experienced pilots (which, in December of 1941, were the best pilots in the world) and Allied pilots learned how to fight the modern Japanese aircraft. After 1942 it simply was not a contest-it was a slaughter.

That is why the Japanese flagrant disregard of pilot survival was so counter productive and damaging to Japan. An experienced pilot was simply irreplaceable and should have been a top priority for saving.

Interesting the Red Army had the same problem for the same reasons with their tank crews. When the Soviets were losing tanks in thousand tank bunches in the first several months of Barbarossa the Red Army ordered its tank crews to stay with their tanks until they (both the tank and usually the crew) burned. Even if the tank crewman survived they were immediately impressed as untrained infantrymen only to be lost with the other millions of Red Army infantry men were lost. It was only late in the war when the Soviets learned that experienced tank crews were a very valuable asset that should not be wasted by either ordering them to be killed in their knocked out tanks or impressed as ad hoc infantry men. Only in late 1944 were Soviet tankers allowed to exfiltrate a battle area and crew a new tank (and infantry commanders were ordered NOT to impress de-horsed tank crews as new-found infantrymen). Soviet tank crews were finally surviving long enough to become trained tank crews.