Do you learn better from a great or a bad experience?

WDD

WDD

Final Approach
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Vintage Snazzy (so my adult children say)
Do you remember better, become more proficient after an “oh crap that was embarrassing” moment, or a “Damn I nailed that one” moment?

BTW - that SixPappaCharlie guy posted a video of attempt to land at the wrong airport. Glad he did - we all have the “why did I do that” moments that will never be admitted. Then again, he did try to push his wife out of the airplane…….
 
A lot learn from bad experiences, but their embarrassment is frequently short-lived, just the short time between going inverted until they auger in. And a lot learn the wrong lesson from getting away with some dubious flying.

OTOH, this is an endeavor where you have to continually push at the edges of your skills & abilities in order to grow as a pilot. A little shower used to send me scurrying for the nearest airport. Now, punching through a local shower is no big deal on an XC. That works until the day that little shower has more convection than you thought or plunges you into hard IMC.

And some scares just plain scar you and make you a less good pilot. I survived a classic “Moose” stall in an L-19. Luckily, it was inverted into triple canopy jungle. Had a hell of a time getting down.

Several decades later, even though my Bushcat LSA is essentially unstallable, I installed an AOA & still feel hinky on the backside of the power curve. And I have to work hard overcoming ground avoidance. I am the king of steep approaches. I’m still working on that.

Clearly, I learned the wrong lesson from that scare, but it is tough to overcome. So, to answer your question, I dunno.
 
The monthly local USAF aeroclub meetings usually include a review of an aviation accident with a fatality.

Not too many times have the meetings discussed someone doing an awesome job flying.

QED
 
learn't a lot from great and bad experiences. learn't what not to do from the bad ones.
 
WDD said:
Do you remember better, become more proficient after an “oh crap that was embarrassing” moment, or a “Damn I nailed that one” moment?

BTW - that SixPappaCharlie guy posted a video of attempt to land at the wrong airport. Glad he did - we all have the “why did I do that” moments that will never be admitted. Then again, he did try to push his wife out of the airplane…….
Click to expand...

We learn from our own failures as well as from other's failures. This is why we have the accident investigations, ASRS reporting etc.. I am not sure what one could learn from "Damn I nailed that one". There isn't a similar reporting system for performing a great act.
 
It's a great question. I don't think I learn much from doing something well once. It's just a bit of an anomaly at that point. But I do learn skills from doing things over and over until I have them right. Bad experiences? That's not a skill lesson, to me that's a judgement lesson and it's right away.

I made a mistake on a go-around once, that nearly resulted in an accident. Completely changed the way I approach go-arounds, from a judgement perspective. I'll never make that mistake again.

And thinking about it for a second, I have had positive experiences that I learned from. Had a CFI ask me to do a practice emergency landing in the field of my choice. I was waiting for him to ask me to call it off. He didn't. He later said he expected to call it off about 100' or so, but for whatever reason I was on a good approach path, and we did a touch and go in that field. I still don't know if it was a great idea or not, but the takeaway was that it isn't just a theoretical exercise. That an off-airport landing is a completely survivable thing. That experience did change how I viewed flying.

So I'll update my answer to say that I've been taught things by hands on example, single experience, that have been positive.
 
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otoh - remember the line from "Bull Durham"?

from the script:

NUKE'S WINDUP AND DELIVERY -- A fastball. A powerful, clean,
overwhelming fastball. Strike one.

NUKE
God, that was beautiful. What'd I
do?
 
Bad experiences for me.

Looking back over nearly 50 years, I hardly remember all the good experiences but I sure remember every close call or bad experience.
 
I have had both. I keep "unintentionally" giving myself reminders that I need to slow down and focus when something unexpected happens.

example: at an airport away from home I was about up and about to depart when I realised my LED landing light wasn't working. I shut down and pulled my cowling to realize that one of the wires to the light had came off. i put it back on and put the cowling back on. In my rush I forgot to reinstall 3 of the cowl screws near the spinner. in flight that part of the cowl shifted enough to rub on the fly wheel, which ground down a nice little chunk of the fiberglass. This only happened because I was in a rush and didnt stop to double check my work. While not unsafe, it did hit home for me that anytime something was out of the ordinary I needed consciously slow down and look for issues. I'm embarrassed that I missed this, I'm also embarrassed that this wasn't a beginner mistake for me. It happened when I was 800-900 hrs in. so that was a negative experice that has influenced every flight I have taken since.

a positive experience I have had was in training for my instrument rating. My CFII took me up on a moonless night had me under the hood doing approaches. It was a fantastic experience that greatly improved my awareness and confidence in flying IFR. It directly translated to flying in actual at night.
 
I think the more important part is whether or not you recognize the good or bad experience. Was it impactful enough for it to register? I've seen students have what I would think would be a significant experience, both good and bad, and sometimes they fail to recognize the significance of the event. Kind of like, "You realize we almost died there right?", or "Hey, that was a really good correction for that gusting crosswind!" without realizing they even did it.
 
I learn more from bad experiences. One night I returned around 1am to home base in a KA200 and was tired. Cleaned the cabin and closed up the plane. Chief Pilot had a trip in the plane at 7am. I got a call about 6am asking about the damage to the right wing, I knew nothing about it. Found out we had hit a bird and dented the leading edge and left bird guts all over it, he was not happy! 40 years later we are still friends.

Now I walk around a plane after every flight.
 
Martin Pauly said:
Looking back, I think I learned some valuable and lasting lessons from impactful experiences - good and bad ones. What mattered to me more than good or bad seems to be that it was something out of the ordinary, something I'll remember for a while.

- Martin
Click to expand...
I read the title and thought for a while. Began composing an answer, then saw it was already here.
 
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