well, there's your first problem: you tried to think without the proper equipment.

for the rest of you: i flew for air nevada in the early 80's, 6 days a week in cessna 402's, and on the days i did 3 turns to the canyon out of vegas i logged 7.5 hours of multi time. i worked there for 18 months and picked up about 1500 hours. i was paid $18,000 per year. no training contract. nobody had even thought of them at the time.