5 degrees?
In the BEA press conference linked by jcjeant, J-P Troadec says:
'the pilot should have applied the unreliable IAS procedure and in fact this procedure consists specifically of adopting a pitch attitude of 5°, whereas the pitch attitude that was adopted at that moment was greater.'
So once again we have confirmed, without comment, that the SOP in case of UAS in cruise involves raising the nose - just not as greatly as the PF with his large stick input raised it.
PJ2 has argued against any change in pitch before starting the checklist, and his arguments sound very convincing to me. Why would you make any change in the flight path of an aircraft in level cruise that has shown no signs of instability? And how long would you keep on at this pitch angle? Indefinitely? Surely the chances of inadvertent overspeed are less threatening than the chance of getting yourself too high, too slow.
Is that (overspeed) the only reason to raise the nose, or have I missed something?