TAT scoring question

Gary Ittner wrote in message ...
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?. 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?

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. I
find the ability to be on multiple provisional starts / finishes /
tasks simultaneously an absurd consequence of the rules. It is little
comfort to me to have your assurance that it is strategically useless.

On day 7 of the 2002 USA 15m Nats at Tonopah, Bill Bartell experienced a
double battery failure while on task: his primary battery became
unplugged, and his backup battery had a low charge. He turned off his
radio, his only vario, and his flight computer, saving his few remaining
electrons for the flight recorder. Bill finished and landed silently,
winning the day and moving into first place overall. Would you have
given him distance points only, or a penalty for not calling "four
miles"?

One day at the 2001 USA 15m Nats at Uvalde, the finish was so crowded
that the radio was squealing constantly from multiple pilots stepping on
each other trying to call "four miles", and Charlie Lite trying to
acknowledge each call. During the less than 2 minutes it took me to fly
at redline from "four miles out" to the finish line, there was not one
moment of clear frequency in which to announce my approach, and I chose
not to step on some other pilot's announcement. Would you have given me
a penalty?


Good arguments for CD discretion.

Suppose S(tart)=F(inish)=TP C. No designated turn MAT. You fly
S-A-B-(FSC)-A-B-(FSC)-A-B-(FSC)-A-B-F (i.e. 11 TPs - 4 times around a
triangle) then after landing claim the best scoring of any one of 10
combinations of consecutive laps:
1,1+2,1+2+3,1+2+3+4,2,2+3,2+3+4,3,3+4,or 4.

Will this work? Can you openly announce all 4 S's and all 4 F's on
the radio to avoid the penalties for not doing so, and choose which to
discard by leaving them off your landing card?

There is nothing in the rules to prevent this scheme, but practical
considerations make it a useless strategy. Firstly, any of the lap
combinations that took significantly less than the minimum task time
would likely score very low.


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.

And since maximum start altitude and minimum finish altitude are never
the same, in order to make an efficient finish and an efficient start
between each lap, you would have to finish at minimum finish altitude
and immediately pull up into a good thermal, climbing to maximum start
altitude before exiting the start cylinder, all without wasting time
searching for lift.

It is therefore unlikely that any combination of laps other than 1+2+3+4
would have both an efficient start and an efficient finish.

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.

And if any
number of laps less than four is sufficient to use up the minimum task
time, you will be beaten by the pilot who did a better job of
"bracketing" the day by not flying as far as your four laps.


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).

If so, why do so many pilots go undertime on no turn MAT's, when they
could easily bank insurance laps during the start gate roulette?

Perhaps those pilots are not as adept as you are at mis-interpreting the
rules or devising poor racing strategies.


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

Gary Ittner P7
"Have glider, will race"