Dear Pilot DAR,
It's the same in the UK. When I started to learn to fly, back in the early eighties, there were already qualified pilots hanging around to chat to and to learn from, as well as my instructor. We used to get the job of updating manuals, checking out the weather, operating the 'company' radio. If it was a fine afternoon, we'd get the old 35 gallon oil drum out from behind the hangar (we called it a barbecue) and set light to some firewood in it. One of us would go down to the store and get burgers and buns and a few beers and stay 'til dark. In the Winter, we'd go down the pub when night fell. On Sundays, the pub wasn't allowed to open 'til 7pm (to make sure everyone had gone to church first) so we'd hang around the clubhouse, showing slides of last summer's airshow or maybe someone had a 16mm projector and some old USAF training films ('Get On Gages!' was my favourite). Anyhow, we all became friends and shared flying trips together, keeping down costs and gaining experience. Now, we're going to each other's funerals. Today, as you say, younger folk just turn up for their lesson, then dash away. I have to pay a student to wash the aircraft, back then we'd have done it together without a thought.
Well, I think we've lost something and I don't know how to get it back.
TOO