Good question.
Maybe there's a simple way to simulate such things?
Rookie: adjusts all settings but much too slow but precise. This one has almost no SA. The ones with too much eye for detail for their own good.
Overheating doesn't happen very quick but forgets to look out his window and sometimes becomes one with his instruments when he digs a hole half way to New Zealand.
Or, the ADHD type: adjusts all settings much faster than an ace but overshoots his chosen values and engine limits all the time, and once in every 3 times forgets one (oil radiator, coolant radiator, supercharger or prop pitch). Forgets to check temperature 50% of the time and when overheating, tends to overreact so performance drops much more than needed. When being chased (stressed) tends to overheat 90% of the time within one minute. Loss of engine power during combat 10% every 5 minutes. Chance of destroying the engine 75% within 15 minutes during combat.
Average: Forgets a setting once every 6 times, quicker to respond to overheating, Loss of engine power 10% every 15 minutes ...
Veteran: Forgets a setting once every 12 times ...
You get the idea.
And the nice thing is, just using counters and timers you don't really need AI routines, because in forgetting stuff there is no intelligence involved
And if the AI wants to set anything, it chooses a value, say 65% throttle, what the game could do is deviate from this setting with a fixed percentage as defined by the skill of the pilot. So the rookie sets 65% but it turns out to be 50% or 80% until the AI chooses a new value. A veteran would get 68% or 62%,
An Ace would be one with his machine (and this way they really become deadly!!)
Imagine formation flying with a bunch of rookies
So there's hardly additional CPU load and such a system could be implemented within a few days, if not present.