I assume rationale/interest in the synthetic AoA subject is on another thread, huh?
Good points, FDR. Our first good HUD plane was prolly the A-7D,. which had a very good representation of velocity vector and great FOV. Could declutter some of the data. And they always cautioned us to fly basic gauges, but I'll bet most of us flew HUD and crosschecked the steam gauges.
The AF447 cree would have seen the FPV drop out the bottom of a HUD and I venture out the bottom of the flight director. That would have told them they had a very high AoA. As their attitude system was good, a high AoA would have been clear crystal. And ask any USN jock about using the FPV for carrier landings and launches on a dark, moonless night - very comforting.
OT alert........ some pilots trimmed the VIper to zero gee before entering a fight so all they had to do was release pressure on the stick and get optimum acceleration.