Jonathan Gere wrote:

Please notice that this rule does NOT contain the phrase "and announced
his start and finish on the radio".

Is this a good argument?.

It is difficult to prove a negative, isn't it? Perhaps I should not have
attempted to make things easier for you and instead simply said, "There
is no rule that invalidates a start or a finish due to lack of a radio
call", and put the burden of proof on you to support your opposing
statement.

I would guess there are quite a few
important rules that affect getting a speed score which are NOT
referenced in 11.2.2.4.4 or the narrow hierarchy of rules defining the
terms 11.2.2.4.4 references. If not, and 11.2.2.4.4 is the all
important master root of all rules that count, congratulations, but
why is it buried 5 levels deep in section 11?

All the rules count, but they cannot all be front and center in
paragraph one. And while some rules may be more important than others
for running a safe and fair contest, the importance of a rule is not
intended to be proportional to its subparagraph level in the rule book.

I am not in favor of radio procedure penalties or radio procedure
violations invalidating "normal" starts or finishes. I am only
clutching at straws to see how the rules might prohibit pre-pending or
appending TPs between multiple provisional starts and finishes.

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?

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"