I have done about 50 737-300 airtests involving manual reversion in the last year alone. It is very heavy but not by any means impossible – even for a weakling like me!
My top tips are as follows:
1. The elevators have quite a dead band at neutral where nothing happens, outside this the elevators are heavy; this can be difficult to get used to.
2. Make sure that you are always in trim (specifically stab trim), otherwise it will get away from you every time you look away and recovery to S&L can be a handful. Remember to retrim for every change of speed, power & configuration.
3. Aileron deflection is heavy so use a little squeeze of rudder as you enter & exit a turn. Once established in the turn it should require no further effort as the ailerons will be neutral. Keep the bank angle small so that you don’t require much back pressure.
4. You wont have autopilot available so take turns between both pilots to give yourself a rest, it is very tiring!
5. If you have to land in this configuration, put out a PAN, use flap 15 to minimise trim changes on finals & if you have to go-around (quite likely). Take a very long final and configure early to get sorted out & allow for long radius of turn.
6. On finals make only very small adjustments to power as thrust gives large trim changes. Also keep an eye on the wind/drift on the way down so that you can set a heading and don’t have to chase it. Oddly it is easy to overcontrol & overcorrect, be economical with your inputs.
The main message is to keep in trim and only make small inputs and thrust changes.