Me, just being a poor student pilot, trying to achieve PPL eventually, but being a great lover of military history. Your analogy of the Battle of Britain pilot is not really relevant to todays environment.
As Boris and jb747 have said, it would take, in the normal course of things a good year or more to achieve satisfactory airmanship. But, not to single out the the air battle over Britain in the spring of 1940, but that type of rule, just thrown out the window. It was more about if you could achieve a very fundamental understanding of an aircraft and an ability not to crash it on take off.
In todays world of supersonic craft or even heavy lift aircraft or helo's. Most would say that there is no place for that type of flyer. But, if the same circumstances were repeated, then just maybe the rule book might be thrown out the window as it was in 1940. Maybe?