Shy talk, - “The issue with the sidestick is important.”
Not necessarily as you infer. An aircraft’s response to control input is the combined effects of stick and trim, with the latter providing a significant, perhaps dominant effect. You can compare this with previous accidents / incidents where conventional aircraft suffered upsets due to incorrect trim position; there are several involving go around.
A difference between conventional and sidestick is the trim force. With conventional aircraft an out of trim situation might be detected by an abnormal force, and many pilots take this as an indication of the aircraft position / motion, which is not always true – a lazy, inferred assessment of the control situation.
With a side stick (without feedback), there is no trim force, thus an alternative method of checking trim state is required – look at the trim wheel, check trim indications.
This is not an issue of one system being better than another, it’s that they are different, but the industry has grown up with a force system and this provides a general understanding of the norm.
In normal and those abnormal situations which had been considered, the sidestick system is quite adequate and may have safety and workload advantages.
With AF447 the particular situation was apparently unforeseen, the trim functioned as designed, but together with the surprise and complexity of overall situation the crew had difficulty in determining the situation.
The situation was novel; it required time, knowledge, and reasoned assessment (and reassessment). It appears that these aspects either ran out or did not occur.
Re coupled sticks; it could be incorrect to accept that stick position, coupled or not represents what the aircraft is doing. Checking, monitoring, and establishing the true situation requires looking at the output of control systems – what the aircraft is actually doing.
This requires assessment of the flight instruments, some of which were not available / accurate in AF447.