Feedback-Informed Learning

QUOTE

Bill Gates once said…

“We all need people who will give us feedback. That’s how we improve.”

(American entrepreneur and philanthropist)

CONCEPT

Feedback-Informed Learning

Feedback-Informed Learning is the practice of using feedback—both internal and external—to guide, adjust, and improve performance or understanding.

It’s more than just listening to critique; it’s about systematically incorporating insights from real-world responses to refine behavior, ideas, or outputs.

Whether in education, design, leadership, or personal development, the most effective learning happens when feedback loops are deliberately built in.

STORY

Flying by the Seat of Your … Wires?

When the F-16 fighter jet first took flight in 1974, it was considered borderline uncontrollable—on purpose.

At the time, military aviation was dominated by heavy, stable aircraft like the F-4 Phantom. But U.S. Air Force engineers and test pilots were chasing something radical: agility over stability. The F-16 was designed to be aerodynamically unstable—a dangerous idea in traditional aviation. This “relaxed static stability” would make the aircraft extremely responsive to pilot input, capable of outmaneuvering any enemy jet. But it also meant that without constant adjustment, it would tumble from the sky.

That’s where feedback came in.

The F-16 became the first fighter to incorporate a fly-by-wire control system. Instead of using mechanical linkages between pilot and wing surfaces, it used sensors, computers, and actuators.

The plane constantly read its own performance—altitude, angle, speed, pressure—and used that data to adjust control surfaces hundreds of times per second. In essence, the aircraft was flying itself, with the pilot giving strategic commands and the system refining those instructions in real time.

This setup required a radical rethinking of how flight worked.

The pilot was no longer in total control; instead, they were in conversation with the plane, guiding it while trusting a continuous stream of internal feedback to keep it in balance.

It worked. The F-16 could pull 9 Gs in a turn and change direction almost instantaneously. It outperformed rivals in dogfights and reshaped global expectations of air combat. But its success wasn’t just about superior engineering—it was about real-time learning. Every movement, every maneuver, every external condition was read, processed, and responded to.

The F-16 became not just a machine, but a feedback system in motion.

The legacy of the F-16 goes far beyond military hardware. Its feedback-informed design inspired everything from commercial aviation safety systems to industrial robotics. Today, every commercial airplane you board uses fly-by-wire technology born from the same principle:

You don’t achieve precision by eliminating uncertainty—you master it by responding to it continuously.