For wanganuilad
I, a mear slf have a question
The sidestick was hard left and back for 30 seconds.
Would this input have been as likely to occur if they had a yoke in front of them?
Depends on how well the attitude indicator was integrated into the PF's scan pattern, not control "position" so much.
EDIT: I have a hard time believing that "hard left and back" for thirty seconds is the accurate translation of what the pilot's input was. I don't think it would take 30 seconds of "hard" input to get the nose up to 16 degrees. My two cents.
I wonder if there is a sensory perception penalty for having the primary control out of the direct line of the pilots sight ?
First off, if this pilot was trained in type (hey, he was!) the where the stick is located is a non-issue. You adapt to where it fits into your hands during type training. A counter to that is "How often did he hand fly in Alt Law?" That is a good question irrespective of sidestick or yoke location.
To more directly answer your question ...
Viper pilots (F-16) seem to have managed to work around this small problem of stick not twixt the legs about thirty years. (see also posts about FBW by a poster "gums" on the Tech log discussions).
http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:A...Y-r2DDLPbkAsU1
Their Naval Brethren, Hornet (F-18) pilots have an FBW control stick remaining in the customary position, twixt the legs.
Either convention seems to work well enough once you've been trained on the aircraft. I have an old friend, retired now, who flew F-18's in the Navy, and flew F-16Ns as an aggressor pilot. He managed to adapt to both.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...18_Cockpit.JPG
If you are a pilot, you don't often look at the stick while you are flying. You sense it's position with the tactile sensations of your hands. You typically "feel the stick" and "look" at its influence via the nose attitude and / or bank you induce with it.
Given that these pilots were in the dark and in the clouds (or in and out of clouds) they'd "see" what their stick was doing by their primary scan instrument, the attitude indicator. (Artificial Horizon, which indicates pitch and roll). Given the FBW characteristics of the stick on the A330, even if both stick were in between the pilots' legs, rather than on one side or the other, the deflection wouldn't be all that visibly apparent the way it is with a traditional yoke.