Dozy:
To the best of our knowledge, what was presented at the start of the sequence was this:
FMS/AP Disconnect - So you're going to have to handle her manually. Be prepared, but first of all do nothing with the controls for a few seconds to see what she's doing by herself. Any inputs you make must be slow and gradual.
Unreliable Airspeed indications - OK, so you don't know how fast you're going via the usual channels, and you're in moderate turbulence, so just keep her straight and level using small and gradual inputs if you have to. Use pitch and power to keep her stable.
Alternate Law 2 - So now you have to fly the aircraft manually with no hard protections, so be even more careful with your inputs. She wants to fly, so keep pitch and power steady (bring power up a little if you have to - if, say, you pulled the power back to transit turbulence earlier on).
If any of that seems more difficult than it would be in any other airliner, for what it's worth I can't see it.
(My bolding above.)
Absolutely correct! But there is a bit more. Someone, maybe Dozy, asked me earlier what an experienced pilot would do when confronted with the AF447 situation. My response was essentially Dozy's answer above. But, it seems to me that the big thing missing in training of pilots flying highly automated aircraft is the absolute need for the crew to constantly be monitoring just what the autopilot and the flight control system are doing. You need to be fully aware of the situation every second. You might be a bit relaxed in daylight and VMC, but at night in foul weather the PF needs to have his eyes glued to the attitude indicator with occasional glances at other instruments such as altimeter, airspeed indicator, and engine instruments. If he does that, he will instantly know the situation when something goes amiss and the autopilot and/or autothrottle click off. As long as attitude doesn't change too drastically, airspeed won't either. Then he simply needs to ride it out while discussing things with the other pilot. If power was set properly to begin with, the natural stability of the aircraft will keep everything else in line. As soon as he changes anything, he upsets the apple cart. I think complacency has caused pilots to assume that the autopilot and flight control system will correct for all problems. As we can see from this most regrettable incident, they won't.