MINDEN, Nevada — Jim Payne from Minden has won his third consecutive world championship in the Aerokurier Online Soaring Contest (OLC). This contest is a year-long contest with almost 15,000 competitors from around the world. To compete, glider pilots record their flights with a GPS logger and submit their flight logs to the contest web site for scoring.
Payne’s six best distance flights covered a total of 12,616.16 kilometers (7,839.7 miles). It makes him world champion in the OLC Plus (distance) for the fourth time in the last seven years.
He also won the world championship in the OLC Speed category. His average speed for his six best flights is 223 km per hour (139 miles per hour). This is his seventh world championship in eight years in the speed category.
His longest flight of 2,701 km (1,678 miles) was the world’s longest of the year. His fastest flight of 241 kph (150 mph) was also the world’s fastest in 2014.
In the Barron Hilton Challenge for the longest triangle flight of 2104, he is the world champion 20-meter class. He flew a 1,085 km (674 mile) triangle.
In the All Flights category, he is the vice world champion with 45,618 km (28,347 miles) in 51 flights. This is greater than the distance around the world.
The Minden-Tahoe area is one of the best in the world for soaring pilots. Pilots flying from the Minden-Tahoe Airport logged 133,079 miles, more than any other airport in the United States during the 2014 season, according to airport officials.
For more information: OnlineContest.org, Douglascountynv.gov/934/Airport