Does gliding time count? not always!
Off I went about 20 years ago to the good old USA, with a silver C in gliding, and my nice little brown booklet complete with UK PPL. Went to see the man at the General Aviation District Office in Orlando, please Sir, would you give me an American License if I show you my British license and medical?
"No problem" said the cheery FAA chap, whose name, I kid you not, was George Bush (no relation).
As I have dual nationality, I have a US social security number, which came in handy. He typed everything into his computer, and printed me out a nice little paper license. "Oh, I guess I better have a look at your logbook as well" he said. So I produced it for his inspection.
His smile disappeared. "I only see 18 hours in here! How do you manage to get a pilot's license with only 18 hours???"
"Well, Sir," I replied, "I had a Silver C in gliders, so that enables you to earn a PPL with only 9 hours, actually, but I wasn't that clever, so it took me a bit longer"
"Oh, this is a difficulty" he was wearing a frown by now. "I've already put your name into the computer......"
So after some consideration, he changed a couple of numbers in my logbook, and behold, I suddenly acquired 20 hours of experience at zero cost!
"I guess that will be alright," he said. "After all, they won't rent you an airplane unless they check out your flying first......"
Ah, the good old days!