A new XC record in a promising region has been set. Muharrem Kılıç, one of our Turkish Distributors, reports: Hakan Akcalar, chairman of the Albatros Air Sports Club from Istanbul, has set a new Turkish Open Distance XC record. On the third of July, he flew 255,5 km from Cokelez/Denizli (former PWC site) to Sivrihisar/Eskisehir. The day started very weak with thermals reaching 2300m max, which is quite low for setting on an XC flight at this site. Leaving the home thermals early, low and alone, he was about to bomb out after his first short glide, but luckily he was able to pull off a low save and then the flight truly began. His goal was to complete 150+ km open distance, but when he reached his goal at around 16:00, the day was still quite switched on with high cloud bases and long inviting cloud streets, so he continued to almost sunset for a total in flight time of 6 hours 58 minutes with an average speed of 49 km/h. He was flying his R10.2 Hakan's flight was made possible by his glider sponsors: Levent Kardesler / L&K Electric Engineering, and Ziya Hacialioglu for sharing this magnifiecent glider with him.

To see his track log: http://www.paraglidingforum.com/leonardo/flight/472561

Meanwhile, the battle for the Turkish record continues. Just 9 days after Hakan's record flight, another R10.2 pilot, Yurdaer Etike, flew almost the same route in the reverse direction between Kırkız/Eskişehir and Cankurtaran/Denizli, landing just 5.5 km short of the record. His flight can be seen here: http://www.paraglidingforum.com/leonardo/flight/476468 Excellent work guys, and thanks to Muharrem for the report. Cheers from all the Team.