More restrictions for "experimental"

On Mar 21, 7:24*pm, Frank Whiteley wrote:
On Mar 21, 9:14*am, Andy wrote:
snip
(35) Proficiency flights are authorized without geographical
restrictions when conducted in
preparation for participation in sanctioned meets and pursuant to
qualify for Federal Aeronautique
International (FAI) or Soaring Society of America (SSA) awards. These
flights may only take place as
defined in the applicant’s program letter, and prior to the specific
FAI or SSA event. The pilot in
command must submit a description of the intended route and/or
geographical area intended to be flown
to the local FSDO.
(Applicability: Group I, gliders only)
snip
*I would recommend active participation in the IGC(FAI)/OLC contest,
every flight. *As SSA state governor, I recognize OLC participation
annually in addition to other achievements. *http://www.coloradosoaring..org/awards.htm
snip

Yes, the SSA does sanction the OLC in the US, and the SSA presents
annual awards nationally, and for each SSA region, for SSA-OLC
Classic, Trangle and League. The SSA state governors are free to make
additional awards in their areas as well. FAI also sanctions the FAI-
OLC League and FAI-OLC triangle portion of the OLC worldwide. One
twist here is that the OLC 'event' runs all year to the second Monday
of October, so this would not conicide with a January 1 annual program
letter period. I would suggest that you could specify in your program
letter which SSA regions you intend to compete in, and this should
meet the specificity requirement. You would have to be registered as
an OLC competitor, have a suitable logger, and upload flight claims on
a regular basis to make this legit. Note that the SSA does not enforce
membership requirements for participation in the OLC, but we only
recognize members for awards, same as the FAI. So you would have to be
an SSA member to be considered a competitor at the SAA-OLC regional or
national level, and/or a member of NAA with a sporting license to
compete in the OLC-i (international) and for NAA national and FAI
world records.

Doug Haluza, CGIG
SSA-OLC Committe Chair

I'm curious about the "All proficiency flights will be conducted in
airspace within an operational radius of 300 nautical miles from the
airport where the aircraft is based" part.

What defines the aircraft's base of operations?

Am I limited to one BofO per year? If not, then how many? Perhaps if I
plan on doing a 500 mile straight-out, I can declare a new BofO for
the second half of the flight?

I'm imagining a 21st century flight recorder that wirelessly emails
the FSDO a new BofO declaration when a GPS fix approaches the 300 mile
limit from the last one ...

On Mar 22, 3:51*pm, Tuno wrote:

What defines the aircraft's base of operations?

There is no base of operations defined in any of my certification
docs. They do, however include the 300nm restriction relative to that
undefined location. Go figure.

In my program letter I have said "Based at Pleasant Valley", "Stored
at, but not flown from, Deer Valley", and currently "Stored at the
home of the owner", depending it which was true for any given year.

My program letters have never bounced, but I always assumed that was
because no one even read them. No doubt that will change as the pot
gets stirred by our local FSDO.

Andy (GY)