Upset recovery training is important but equally, I think, is to use your situational awareness to avoid getting into a situation in the first place.
(I fly the Airbus, I don't know about the 737) Don't fly above optimum alt on the fmgc, ensure you program it properly in the first place, wind, tropo and OAT - update tropo and OAT enroute and if the optimum decreases as it might sometimes then descend with it.
Slow down promptly when you encouter turb., coming back from say 0.79 to .77 will give you a lot more margin if the tx suddenly worsens. If you expect a significant change in wind in the first few thousand feet of descent or tx has been reported or forecast then slow down a decimal point or two at top of descent and then speed up again once the margin is greater and you are through the questionable layer.
Don't push you luck with CB's - use the bloody wx radar correctly! Years ago, just out of line training I was a very inexperienced FO and trucking back north across croatia etc from a med charter we were imc at FL340 and in continual moderate turb, the a/c (321) was struggling to maintain the speed and we were vunerable to any worsening. Suddenly came out into a clear patch and surprise surprise we were in the middle of a line of thunderstorms, the capt had the wx radar on zero tilt and only showing greens, but we were of course just looking at ice in the tops, he turned it down 2 degrees on my suggestion and low and behold and whole pretty picture of reds and yellows etc. I still feel we were lucky that evening. I have never let a radar sit at zero in the cruise again - and many people leave it like that.
Lastly, use tcas and contrails, particularly in v busy airspace like western Europe to keep track of wake, its easy to do if you put a bit of thought into it. ATC over western europe are pretty good at wake separation but not perfect and I have asked many times for 5 degrees left or right to avoid wake.
If all of that means you take an extra minute or even 5 to destination, so what? I agree that we probably need more upset training but I'd rather we avoided the situations in the first place.
My tuppence for what its worth.
Last edited by wings11; 22nd Nov 2012 at 18:40.