I was thinking about posting something along similar lines.
You see many posts (and even adverts) talking about "structured hour-building". To be honest, I don't know what that means. However, I could guess that it means:
- Practice techniques - glides, PFL, Steep turns, flapless approach, i.e. all the good stuff we did in our PPLs.
- x-country and transversing busy airspace to get RT work, and nav.
Now, I've been good at the first, but I've done very few x-countrys resulting in a landing away. (I've done quite a few x-country's without landing away).
I've have had quite a few instructors hours since qualifying. When I went to the states, the weather was so bad, I had to have an instructor (see I don't have an IR) and we practiced lots of IFR with many a ILS.
I now beleive I've got too many instructor hours, so once I've finished my night rating, I will do some longer x-country to land away solo. My log book is cramed with departures and arrivals indicating the same airfield -which looks pretty bad!
However, the instructor time I have is good - it has made me aware that after qualifying you are still learning. Since I went to a complex single soon after qualifying, I'm pleased I had the extra time.
The one thing I have noticed, is my checks are appalling - so I now spend time practicing on my flight sim before every flight...
There is an interesting snippet in Flyer this month - an incident was reporting where the PIC overshot the runway, because he was not used to not having an instructor, where his judgements where always scrutinised - as a result he couldn't make a good decision.