heliski22, I completely agree with your support for the pilot. Here is an exchange that I had a few years back on rec.aviation.rotorcraft that discussed the same point. A young pilot who fell into a spin during solo practice was flogging himself about it. My response :
Dear Student,
I've been flying professionally all my life. I've taught hundreds to
fly all kinds of machines, and I am now the chief R&D pilot for an
airframe manufacturer. From this view point, I see your learning
experience, and your reaction to it to be admirable and healthy. Don't
chastise yourself about missing some sleep the night before, and don't
lament the 90 degrees of rotation before you caught on. Instead,
consider how much you learned, and how the altitude you used as a
backstop when to practice the stall came in pretty handy.
My experience with pilots has shown me that those who feel bad and
accept the error are healthy, normal and likely to live and fly a long
long time. Those pilots who find an excuse, and rationalize the problem
to find some way of keeping their ego unpunctured are really somewhat
dangerous, and very likely to press on into weather, or make some other
blockheaded mistake.
Just be sure and keep that healthy respect for your capacity to make a
mistake, and plan on what to look for when it happens, and plan on what
to do to ameliorate it. Flying is a sequence of continuous error
corrections. Any pilot who tells you he never makes mistakes is telling
you he has never seen the mistakes he has made!
Good luck, and keep on flying and learning.