dozzywanabe
you mentioned "handling the big jets'
I read it about 30 years ago...still have a copy and even wrote to the author...he was kind enough to write back and I still have his letter to me.
you mentioned a US equivilent...I would say: "Fly the Wing" by Webb is every bit as good...maybe a bit more oomphy and less british...but he was an american (eastern airlines) pilot. Flew DC9's. I had the great good fortune to track him down and spoke with him for over an hour on the phone...he echoed many of the things that bubbers and I have been saying. he paid me the supreme compliment saying: 'you get it.
if money permited, I would take up a perspective pilot...tell him to fly from Pittsburgh to Chicago in a plane he had never flown. I would tell him I would handle the checklists and systems..he had to navigate and aviate.
and NO FREIGGN auto pilot.
hand fly at the max authorized altitude (remember when we called it the service ceiling?)
I would see how he could trim her up at altitude...that tells me alot about a flyer!