What a former Airbus test pilot had to say the other day...
I am not an Airbus pilot.
When I attended a seminar on the topic of loss of control incidents and accidents, which was held by EASA in Cologne last week, there was a lot of discussion about these issues and pilot training in general.
It has been agreed, that stall training has to be revised and that merely 'powering yourself out of it' isn't enough.
Modern simulators do not replicate all aspects of aircraft behaviour 100% realistically, but they are considered to be close enough to the 'real thing' and also: they are the best we have.
Pilots should receive more training doing hands-on flying at all altitudes and in all configurations of their aeroplane.
Mr. C. Lelaie, a former Airbus test pilot and a well known capacity in the community, told me that the A330 is entirely controllable at all flight levels and in all modes or laws the airplane has to offer.
I know it must sound easy to somehow with Mr. Lelaie's background, but point he (and others, representing Boeing, NASA, the FAA, simulator providers and so on) was trying to make: scenarios like these should be practiced during training from time to time...
Interesting point made by someone from Lufthansa CityLine: SIM time is precious. Why not practicing system malfunctions in simpler cockpit procedure trainers rather than expensive full-motion flight simulators, thus leaving more time for manual flying of the aircraft?