Perhaps it's best to wait until the poster has a couple hundred posts under his belt before providing him with good counsel...but I don't think so.
It's the same counsel I've been posting on this site for quite a few years now. Perhaps you haven't been reading long enough to know that.
Pilots place an emphasis on time. Gotta have time. Gotta build time. I just landed, let's log the flight. Add it up. Now how much time have I got? Hey, Al. How ya been? How much time ya got now? Hey, mate. you sound like you know what you're talkigng about, but how much time ya got? I need to know, so I can know w(h)eather to listen to you, or not. It's all about the time.
It isn't about the time. I've met a lot of high time pilots with whom I wouldn't let my dog fly. I've known a number of much lower time pilots who's experience and understanding far outstrips the others...I'd let them fly my dog, my children, and me.
One pilot flies around, droning about, sightseeing, and "building time." He gets a safety pilot and together they fly five hundred miles in a straight line, both "building time. The safety pilot logs it as PIC...and has just gained PIC "time."
Another pilot gets in the airplane and flies landings, approaches, practices engine failures, concentrates on ground reference exercises, forces himself or herself to ensure spot landings within 50' of the target, and won't accept the practical test standards as a minimum...he or she sets his or her standards higher and flies in order to meet that higher standard. This person lands not only with time, but with experience, and there is a gulf of difference between time and experience.
Both an hour or ten, of "time." But one is experience and makes a better pilot, the other is not.
As a young student, I took worked very, very hard to be able to have the privilege. I could only afford a short hop here and there. I was thrilled every time I left the ground. One day I took a short flight around the valley, and on return, logged it as "joyriding." One of my instructors, a stern gentleman who liked SF school so much he went back and qualified as a Ranger too, ripped me a new one. He told me he didn't ever want to see that in my logbook again. He told me when I went out next, I'd have a plan, and I'd fly the plan, and I wouldn't waste my time. He knew how hard I worked for each second of my existance in that airplane, and he wasn't about to see it wasted.
I was shocked, and hurt. At sixteen years old, it wasn't what I was expecting, but it was also what I needed to hear, and he was right. I concentrated on making every moment count. Before every flight, I made cards that told me exactly what I'd be doing on that flight. How many stalls, what kind, and the results. How many landings, the type, and my standards for them. That practice followed into other kinds of flying. I follow it today.
Even on a fire mission, when everything is fluid, I push very hard to ensure that certain standards are met, I learn something more about myself, the airplane, or the job every time, and it's paid off. I can go to a fire and have ground troops who will stand next to my drop with confidence, or ask me to drop between them, when they'll clear the area for others they don't know or trust. I could go out and toss the load on the fire, or near it, and come home, and collect my paycheck...and possibly log the "time." But it's far more than that, it's an experience, and w(h)eather it gets logged or not, it's NEVER about the time, always about the experience.
If it's the time that's the essence, if that's what's most important, then write it in the logbook. Fake it. Make it up. Parker pen it. Whatever. That's all time is worth. It's just numbers in a logbook. Get in an airplane with me, and I'll know...as will just about anyone who knows what they're looking for or talking about...the lack of experience will show up quickly. It will show up in the way you talk, act, preflight, taxi, fly. But you'll still have time in your logbook. And if you're a time builder, that's probably all you want.
I received counsel by an examiner who signed off my ATP. He told me at the time to falsify my logbook in order to seek a job. He told me I needed the multi engine time, he told me I needed the total time, in order to compete. He told me he gives that counsel to every pilot he passes, and I knew many of his signatories who had gone before...who did that very thing. I met one who claimed all sorts of experience, and certainly had the "time" to back it up...except that I found his picture on a FBO wall showing him soloing a year before. A year to ATP...pretty good I guess for a guy that logged three or four times his actual flgiht time on every hour. The time, so says the Bard, was the thing.
Of course, he was an idiot. He flew like it, too, and when I knew him, he was fired for his flying. No experience, but he had the "time," and thought that was all that counted.
Yes, two pilots can fly the same hour, and one gets an hour of time, and the other gets an hour of experience. Build experience, not time. Don't marvel at that; it's a truth. It's far more than rolling the trim and pulling back and pushing forward. A pilot seeking experience challenges himself, a pilot seeking time logs time. An instructor gaining experience seeks new ways to teach, and is a teacher. An instructor building time feels he's paying his dues, sitting in that seat long enough to get his hours and move on, and is instructing, not teaching.
Teachers operate on a much higher plane than instructors. Teachers expand a students mind and find ways to reach the student according to the students needs, whereas an instructor administers a syullabus, checks boxes on a form, and of course, "builds time."
The industry needs less "instructors," and more Teachers. Instructors often feel their duties are beneath them, and can hardly wait to seek work which is "worthy" of them. Teachers are often humbled at the opportunity to share their craft, and often feel themselves unworthy of the tast. The teacher is always seeking for a better way to share, to reach, to expand, to teach. The teacher still logs the time, but it's about far more than time. Teaching is an experience; a priceless one.
Likewise for the student, many have had instructors who moved on quickly, who didn't care, who were marking time in the cockpit until they could get something bigger, better. Ambition is not a crime, but a failure to give 110% to the student is, or should be. A punishable one. But it's the student that gets punished, by not having the attention and effort given. Too many instructors see students as machnies that they use to pay for their time building efforts, and this is VERY, VERY wrong.
Build experience, not time. There is a world of difference between the two.
No biting required, nor involved. Just the truth. With a little more experience, hopefully you'll see that.
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