Looking toward the future, how much nose up trim do you really need at FL350?
Are you ever going to drop the flaps up there?
Maybe the control laws need to be looked at in this regard.
I fear we head for a circular discussion.... previously in this thread we have decried the obnoxious Airbus automation as somehow evil and root of all issues. I feel we have gotten past that, however now we appear to be calling for limits in Alt Law, which as we all know (right?) is invoked ONLY due to some failure of the system - in this case UAS.
The transition to Alt Law is a heads-up to the crew - something is broken (temporarily or otherwise), since the interaction of the automated control system relies on the sensed performance parameters, would that highly trained human sitting up front please take control?
In the case in question, the aircraft was handed to the human in a reasonable condition, it was not stalled, it was not overspeed, it was not balanced on a wingtip... I accept that the hand-off was unexpected (aren't all system failures unexpected?) and this requires a considered and thoughtful reaction on the part of the PF.
The reaction appears to not have been that, and judging by the amplitude of the control inputs (3/4 travel this way or full to the stop that) excessive - perhaps at low speed/altitude appropriate, but not at M0.8/FL350... did the PF forget where he was, never had experienced hand-flying at this speed/alt (likely, given the Air France training info), or simply panic.... but the crux here is the automated systems and protections/limits available in Normal were by design no longer there, since the inputs and control data necessary to compute those limits were no longer considered VALID.
And so, why would you limit elevator/THS travel based in ONLY AoA? I venture you need a SPEED input to make a sensible judgement on limiting elevator/THS travel... but speed was the input in question.
Was the problem the aircraft did too little, or the pilot too much of the wrong thing?
Last thought - what would have happened if the autopilot/autothrottle had NOT dropped offline when the speed inputs went U/S? What if the system simply went into an extrapolation mode for say 3 minutes... using GPS computed ground speed as the delta control? I'd bet we would not be looking at this thread.