Having just watched a re-run of the accident investigation of Air France flight 444 . The one that was stalled by the first officer when the pitot tubes froze up. The FO unable to recognise the situation kept pulling back on the sidestick and maintained up elevator throughout effectively cancelling out the downward input from the more experienced relief who was trying to recover .
this Tv show highlighted the lack of basic manual flying skills common to today's aircrew . I'm not casting aspersions of blaming anyone it's just a fact , most of the older pilots grew up flying light aircraft sometimes in terrible conditions and honed their flying skills that way . This is not happening today and I'm afraid that there is no alternative to experience .
Almost any of the older generation faced with the same situation would have kept the aircraft straight and level with the same thrust setting . If it was fine for the time leading up to the pitots freezing , chances are that if you don't change things the status quo will remain the same
I'm just not sure that the younger pilots have the necessary expertise as was clearly demonstrated in this accident