Originally Posted by
hetfield
I'm afraid it would make sense for all mentioned parties to hide the truth or at least some aspects.
Not really. The fallout of the DC-10 "Gentlemens' Agreement" proved that if you try to deal with problems surreptitiously, it *will* come back and bite you in the empennage.
Originally Posted by
mm43
Though PAP is "lost" in ALT and DIRECT Laws?
I think by "active" it means "engaged and working" rather than merely "armed and ready". This makes sense because you don't want autopilot commands muddying the waters when you're in that situation.
Originally Posted by
gums
I only weighed about 135 - 140 pounds naked
You rode the F-16 bareback?
Duuuude! 
Originally Posted by
TTex600
A market solution has never been tried.
To all intents and purposes it has, and the result was the Great Depression.
A market solution would exclude government "oversight" in all ways and safety would be dictated by the customers. In such an environment, airline X could sell tickets based entirely on price and airline Y could sell tickets on properly maintained birds - properly trained pilots - adequate fuel loads, etc.
Except that's not how it works though. What would in all likelihood happen is that your hypothetical "Airline X" would undercut the hypothetical (safe) "Airline Y", and because of the technological and safety advances, X would get away with shaving safety margins for some time - probably long enough for Y to go out of business, with X taking over the routes and heading towards a monopoly. By the time something catastrophic happens to X, either it will have become a monopoly (meaning the choice is X or nothing), or the only remaining competing airlines will also be price-driven - meaning if the accident puts X out of business, the only remaining players are much the same.
The problem with all these modern "free-market" theories is that they don't take human capriciousness into account.
@PJ2 :
