Quote: "Having read Davies well authored book (Handling the Big Jets, first printing) in 1968, I approached large heavy swept wing jet transport aircraft wanting to know as much as possible".
Me too, I read "Handling the Big Jets" before I started my type rating and am not content with only being able to fly from A to B. However, in the past, whenever I have asked to do anything out of the ordinary I get a "why would you want to do that?" response, or a "but you'll never need to". I begged one of my ATPL instructors to let me fly in icing for instance (in a suitably equipped aircraft I hasten to add), but he couldn't understand why I wanted to. It is that sort of attitude that I think needs to be taken out of aviation. If it is left to the student's motivation to find out about the aerodynamics and loads on an aircraft, then most will miss out on important knowledge, as frankly humans can be very lazy.
I will watch with interest what this accident report will say as I still cannot believe, that even if AA taught the use of rudder, that the actual control movements were the intended inputs. But I do think that from the comments of many pilots about the rudder that our training could cover more aircraft envelope/response training and that it is very important.