There are a lot of interesting documents on the NTSB hearing site in addition to the CVR transcript. In particular I found the flight crew interviews to be a very interesting read. A couple of examples:
from First Officer Skiles -
When asked how he liked working for the company, he said “no one likes working with the company”. He said given the alternatives it was “not so bad”.
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When asked to compare the captain’s proficiency to other pilots he had flown with, he said it was extremely high. He said the captain’s greatest strength was that he was still “blown away” by his professionalism. He could not think of an area in which the captain could improve. When asked if he heard anyone ever complain about flying with the captain, he said he never read the captain’s name on the “bathroom wall”.
from Captain Sullenberger -
In the previous interview with Captain Sullenberger, he stated that what helped him during this situation was that he “understood the concept of management of energy”. He was asked to further explain what he meant. He said he was not specifically referring to ditching but about the entire incident. He said since the situation was so time critical, at such a low speed and altitude over populated area, with so few options, he was able to fairly quickly consider all of the alternatives he was aware of and pick the one that would lead to the best outcome. There was not a lot of time to review the options. Asked where he learned about energy management, he stated the difference between flying a smaller and larger airplane is the energy involved and the total energy was the sum of two terms – height, which represents potential energy, and kinetic energy. He said raising the nose would decrease kinetic and increase potential, and vice versa. He said it was those sorts of things that were required to successfully fly a jet because there are higher speeds and altitudes involved. He thought it was something that was gained through experience.
Playing the real time animation also reinforces how very little time was available for decisions and actions.