Just know that your motivation will pay off, but right now you should focus all your energy to being the best F/O a captain could have. The truth is that even though you feel like you are qualified to be captain you really are'nt.
I have always made my best effort to perform my job duties to the best of my ability no matter what my job may be and this is no different. I try my darndest to be the best FO I can possibly be. I'm lucky that I fly with great captains that are understanding and helpful...I needed that when I first started. I asked for and recieved alot of constructive criticism and now I feel that I have integrated and implemented suggestions and ideas with my own ideas to create something that works. The captains seem to think so because there isn't much to discuss on post flight briefings anymore...unlike my early days! I understand my place and I'm OK with it.
Don't get me wrong, I hope to be a captain some day but as of right now, I'm not ready nor am I qualified. I can fly the airplane but so can anybody else with a little training and some time in type. What really counts is the other skills and I'm working on developing those decision making and leadership skills that are so important to be a great and competent captain.
Yes there are captain with 6000 hours that still struggle. And yes you may have to watch them, as I have and continue to do. But I speak from experience when I say, do it quietly.
I look at it this way, if I was in this persons position, how would I want it handled. I happened to be in this position and I still am, I fly with captains all the time who have more time in type than myself and in the early days you could tell that they were watching me, now not so much. They let me make my own decisions and trust me to make the proper ones. It's nice to have come this far...I can't imagine how much farther I can go. Another plus is that the captains I fly with are aware of the fact that I have more time in type than they do and they mention it on the preflight brief. They say something along the lines of, "If I do something wrong, let me know. If you have any suggestions or hints, let me know, and keep track of what I'm doing." They also have asked me, a lowly low-time FO to give them a post flight debrief of their performance. This is the same thing that they did for me when I was new and now they are asking me for help. It's very flattering. But I don't let it go to my head. These people are still far superior to myself in abilities. I may have more time in type than they do but I don't place much significance on being able to fly the airplane better because in a few more months these people will have gained more experience and eventually, they will fly it as well as I do. Yet I still won't have the captain skills that they posses. That will take more time.
I hope I did not come across wrong but that is my take on it.
You definitely did not come across wrong, I appreciate your point of view!
Ps- Don't ever feel like you have something to prove. That is a bad place to be. Just do your job with a smile. Belive me, everyone knows you can fly that plane good. They obviously already respect you for it. If you want to be a captain, act like one. Don't try to prove anything. And, by all means let the autopilot earn its $
Point taken. Thanks for the suggestion. And I guess I can start letting the autopilot do a little more.

The wx at home this evening is supposed to be down so maybe I'll let it do the work tonight!
BigD,
It's a great job and I enjoy it immensly! I was hired on by this company as a BE20 FO (all previous flying was singles and duchess and seminole multi-engine a/c). Little did I know that two months later I would be a DA-10 FO and then one month after that that I would be a DA-20 FO. The -10 is fast, it's sensitive, and did I mention, it's
fast?! It took me 3 hrs just to be in the same zipcode as the -10. A few more hours and I was able to keep up with the plane but it took me a good 50-60 hrs to actually be ahead (where you want to be) of the airplane. In the beginning the AP did alot of the work. I took advantage of deadhead legs to handfly as much as the captain and myself could stand (handflying a touchy airplane at FL370 isn't as easy as it sounds). Fortunatly the captains were tolerant and never mentioned that they were getting sick! I admit, the flying then was NOT up to ATP standards. +100, -100 was common then. As with anything though, the more I handflew the better I got. That's probably why I don't use the auto pilot below 10,000! Actually had to fly the airplane out to San Jose last month with the auto pilot inop. The captain gave me all four legs (we had to have fuel stops out and back) because he didn't want to have to hand fly! I'm happy to say that the pax never knew the difference or at least they were too nice to mention it!

I consider the -10 the sportscar and the -20 the cadillac...it's very stable and easy to handfly and not quite as fast as the -10.
All in all, I never thought I would be where I am right now but I'll take it and enjoy and savor every minute of it.
Well, it's not quite the same as the first time I typed it but hopefully this one will make it to the message board!