About the sidestick thing, I'll put an idea on here in case it eventually achieves results where they count........
I mainly flew stuff that had the traditional 'stick between the knees' - only occasionally (when I could afford it) did I fly anything with a yoke. But it just occurred to me that, because of the layout of the other controls, even though I'm left-handed, I worked the stick almost exclusively with my right hand. Using my left hand would have put me on quite a steep learning curve -and it would have been even more difficult for right-handers......
It was even simpler with a yoke. Most of us will have travelled and rented cars in other countries - sure, you can get things like the wipers and the signals mixed up, but at least the steering-wheel and the pedals are arranged the same way whether the car is lefthand or righthand drive......
Occurs to me that Airbus' adoption of the 'sidestick' calls for pilots to learn to fly equally-effectively with either hand. Beyond that, 'first officers' must find themselves doing most, if not all, of their 'learning' flying from the righthand seat. In this case, the PNF was in the seat that he was accustomed to, but the PF was in the one he very possibly hadn't got much experience of at all.........
Add to that the 'visibility' problem. Had the sticks been in the traditional 'between the knees' position, the PNF would have had no difficulty at all in 'reading' the PF's inputs.
Years back, when sidestick Airbuses were 'just coming in,' I had an airline captain as a neighbour and he was 'all for' the sidesticks. Mainly because, for the first time in his career, he reckoned that he was able to eat his meals in a 'civilised' manner, without the yoke getting in the way!
So a suggestion for Airbus. Try putting the sticks back in the central, 'between the knees' position that pilots have been used to for (literally, nowadays) a century or so. I won't even argue for 'feedback' - I know that would cost a lot of money and weight.
But at LEAST it would mean that every hour of hand-flying that pilots can accumulate - not much anyway these days - would count as 'solid' experience, and they wouldn't have to adjust to 'using the other hand' just because they happened one day to find themselves sitting on the other side of the cockpit?
Just MIGHT help?