Hatunen writes:

The lady in question has a commercial license, which implies more
experience than noodling around in a 152.

You can fly any sort of aircraft as a commercial pilot, and in particular, a
CPL does not necessarily imply any experience at all in large jet transport
aircraft. If you want to barnstorm across the country in a 152, for example,
you need a CPL.

At a minimum the lady would know pulling back on the yoke raises
the nose and and pushing forward makes for nose down. She would also
know that turning the yoke will not make the plane turn unless the pedals
are also used.

Presumably, but since she will absolutely not be touching these flight
controls, this knowledge is useless.

And, of course, she will know most of the lingo
and will know where to look when told to watch the air speed or
the artificial horizon.

There isn't a lot of lingo to know, but she might find it easier to locate the
attitude indicator on the PFD without it being described to her, and she might
find the airspeed without it being explained, although that depends largely on
her ingenuity--small aircraft twenty years ago did not have PFDs.

She will presumably know the difference
between mag north and true north and will have a pretty good idea
of which direction runway 120 points. She would know the purpose
of the flaps, the VOR, and so on. She will know how to read an
air chart.

All she is going to do is turn a few knobs or move a few levers, which anyone
can do, with or without a pilot's license.

Nonsense. While teh cockpit of a 747 is pretty complex, it still
contains the basic instruments of a twin-engine Beech.

Actually, apart from the compass, standby AI, and altimeter, there's almost
nothing in common. The cockpit does have a yoke, rudder pedals, and a couple
of throttles, but she needs to stay away from those.

I don't recall anyone here saying they could.

This isn't the only place where I discuss aviation. Anyway, the same pilots
who believe that a non-pilot would instantly crash any aircraft also tend to
believe that they can fly anything, even if they've never been in any aircraft
with more than two seats and a propeller.

Well, duh. That's not the question at hand.

Well, yes, it is. You can only stretch knowledge of one aircraft so far, then
you need to explicitly study other aircraft. Knowing how to drive a Ford
Escort does not teach you how to drive a tractor-trailer rig, even if they are
both road vehicles.

You've heard many people claim this? Who? And especially, who
here in this thread? As usual you're making up straw men.

As I've said, I discuss aviation in all sorts of venues, not just on USENET.

But this is a case where it would be especially helpful if the
person taking over the controls had, say, a commercial license,
for the reasons I cited above.

I've explained why those reasons would be mostly inapplicable.

Among other things, an average passenger sitting in the left or right
seat would probably go into shock at the mere sight of an airline
instrument panel.

Not so. In real-world emergency situations, people tend to be a lot calmer
than they are in Hollywood movies or in imagination. There are some who panic,
but many who don't. Natural selection doesn't favor people who panic easily.

Some one with a commercial license, would immediately look for the
instruments familiar to him or her.

And would become just as alarmed as the non-pilot upon realizing that
virtually nothing looks familiar.