Gary Ittner wrote in message ...

So, did you deliberately prevaricate when you stated that, according to
the rules, a start or finish is invalidated by the lack of a radio
announcement?


No, I sincerely misunderstood how the rules committee intends the
rules to be read. There is an outline level heading for each type of
start and finish. In the same hierarchical position for each type are
a paragraph *requiring* certain communications and a paragraph
*requiring* certain flight paths. It is natural to me to assume they
are both essential parts of the procedure to get a start or finish.
Especially, if the consequence of assuming the opposite is a goofy
loophole, blocked only by a top pilot's assurance that it is
unprofitable!

If I understand the rules of construction correctly, based on your
clarifications, not making required communications is against the
rules, but has no bearing on being scored for speed points, and only
might/may be penalized at CD discretion. Apologies to anyone I
ignorantly misled into following the rules unnecessarily.

I think all this falls into the category of an "oral tradition" rather
than a "tight" racing rule. Leaving out the deliberate prevarication
you suspect of me, see that eager racer 711 quite misunderstands the
rules as you see them regarding my useless loophole. Luckily, not
understanding (or reading) the rules is traditional in soaring. My
impression is that to arrive at the "accepted" interpretation of our
rules requires in turn both mind boggling chains of logic and literal
reading in some places and the ignoring of loopholes and literal
contradictions in other places in favor of common sense. I cited some
examples in earlier posts. And no I don't think I could write them
better, if you are tempted to reply with the standard "why don't you
volunteer to write the rules if you think they aren't perfect".

When the rules introduced this multi-task in progress possibility, it
would have been nice had it been noticed, and the theoretical
possibility discussed, along with how useless the best pilots find it.
But it seems to me that it was overlooked. I think that if you rule
writing, contest winning experts had considered and ruled out this
stuff as harmless in advance, such a seemingly important, but
inconsequential, major change would have been explicitly covered in
the explanatory material.

I find the ability to be on multiple provisional starts / finishes /
tasks simultaneously an absurd consequence of the rules.

And I do not.

It is little
comfort to me to have your assurance that it is strategically useless.

It is of great comfort to me. I believe there may an infinite number of
useless strategies for flying any of the tasks. One of the main purposes
of the rules is to ensure fair competition, but I see no benefit in
making our rulebook infinitely longer by specifically prohibiting every
strategy in which a pilot cannot gain an unfair advantage, or indeed any
advantage at all.

I'm shocked. This is weird. I don't believe that all variations of
this loophole are strategically useless. The 4 times around example
is just a good example of the absurdity of the loophole. Operational
exploitations can be much more profitable.

In practice, one could just prepend optionally claimable S-one or more
TPs- Home TP-S combinations without going low to finish. Cheap
insurance against gross or possibly even minor undertime.

The insurance excursions would occur before the final start intended
to bracket the *expected* day. The insurance excursions would absorb
any inefficiency in getting ready for the "perfect" optimized start.
If not claimed, the excursions imperfect efficiency wouldn't matter.
On the other hand, 1hr at even 80% efficiency is a lot better than
nothing, when everyone else finished an hour undertime due to an
*unexpected* thunderstorm. 30 minutes at 90% efficiency might be
worth claiming to avoid a routine 5-10 minute undertime (at 0%
efficiency).

I will admit that it is not entirely impossible that you could gain by
this strategy, but the phrase "extremely unlikely" does not seem
powerful enough to describe it.

To recap, your insurance lap would only be useful with a no turn MAT
(rare nowadays), called on a day with no expected weather problems (when
other, less flexible tasks are *far* more likely to be called; no turn
MATs are usually called specifically because there are expected weather
problems), all of your competitors start (what turns out to be) too
late, and along comes a weather problem too severe for the flexibility
of the MAT to deal with. I'd call it a one in a million chance.


And I don't agree that this insurance is cheap; you simply haven't
calculated the cost. You might have to try this insurance lap trick many
times before the proper conditions arise to make it useful, and:

1. You might land out while your competitors are safely back near the
contest site playing start gate roulette. Believe me, I know what it
feels like to land out before one's expected start.

2. The conditions could change while you are on your insurance lap,
causing everyone else to start en masse before you get back for your
expected start. Even on a no turn MAT, there is often only one obvious
direction to go. Your competitors will have thermal markers, and you
will have none.

3. Even when the proper combination of conditions comes along, you
cannot be sure all of your competitors will start late. If one starts
early, he will have the advantage over you of being able to place a
higher proportion of his flight in the area of best lift. Your insurance
lap will necessarily be close to home, and, in my experience, that is
rarely where the best soaring conditions are located.

The premium you pay for your insurance lap is much higher than the
potential claim payout.

Thanks. You admit the loophole. I leave it to better pilots to work
out the operationally sound strategies.

And if there are no operationally sound strategies, is it still a
loophole?

Gary Ittner P7
"Have glider, will race"

Yes. Because the long shot pilot whose "policy" pays off does not
have to have good long term prospects to screw up a day's scoring (his
outstanding performance effectively further devaluing the day by
reducing the point spread between the contending, undertime top dogs
following good strategy.)

Yes. Because pilots should understand what the rules permit and either
come to their own conclusions about what to do, or just sensibly
accept the experts' advice on the subject.

Thanks for sharing your keen racing strategizing, and for responding
to the issues I raised. I feel that many racers would not be as
comfortable as you are with this "non-loophole" (if they knew it
existed). Like JJ they might think anyone that did it was cheating.
Me to! But I also believe that like the illusion of the witch and the
beautiful woman, log files show both the "cheating" and the normal
racing re-starts, and the two are not always objectively
distinquishable.

Jonathan Gere 34