1. Just tell us where the best glide speed is, in % of the VRef. That percentage is a constant for a given aircraft configuration.
That can be done but remember the BA38 was not a glider: the engines were still producing significant thrust, albeit not enough to maintain a 3deg slope in full landing config. This would have had quite an effect on the optimum speed to fly (whatever that was...).
A possibility would have been to take the aircraft into ground effect earlier but that's hard to model correctly as it is very dependent on the precise nature of the terrain and the aeroplane position relative to it. Simulators are good for many "what if?" exercises but they can throw up "false positives" unless you fully understand the limitations of the simulation environment and what the software is/isn't taking account of.
Nothing is sacrilege in such an emergency. The first available software is in the pilot brain, its common name is "basic airmanship".
Definitely!
Perhaps there is a need to train from time to time for the maintenance of that precious software.
Agreed, but in the context of this particular accident, I don't see much training value. A slight change of circumstances might lead to a very different method to achieve an "optimal" outcome; there's not much point in training for a 1x10-9 scenario when your resources are limited and you want to achieve the best "bang for your buck". There is also the point that, generally, we don't play out scenarios in training that have a crash as the most likely outcome, despite crew actions, for obvious psychological reasons! This is reflected in the Boeing manuals, where they only deal with a dual engine failure at height and effectively assume that you get one or both restarted...