Aviation lore veritably brims with tales of the fearless test pilot flying into harm's way to probe the limits of an experimental airplane's performance, the quintessential scenario being the flutter dive. You know the scene: Pull up, Buck, pull up!

Today’s FOQA and ASAP voluntary reporting programs owe their origins to the Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS) operated on behalf of the FAA by NASA. The ASRS was conceived by the FAA and NTSB in the wake of the TWA Flight 514 CFIT accident in Virginia while on approach to Dulles International Airport in 1974 with the loss of all 92 souls on board.

More data have been generated, collected and processed by the human race in the last 36 months than during the previous 3,000 years. Further, every day of every month the worldwide flood of information on every conceivable subject increases exponentially.