Migrating birds, arriving in Ankara, and local contacts and information.

Annie and I have now been at our campus apartment in Bilkent University, Ankara for a week. We drove the 9 hour trip from Kalkan to Ankara on Saturday 26th.



The landscape on the drive up is spectacular, with successive mountain ranges receding into vast flatlands in the Anatolian heart of the country. We saw something awe-inspiring half way through our journey: thousands of large birds, which due to the scale involved looked like a dense swarm of insects, thermalling together above the flatlands - all in one colossal thermal. The picture doesn't do this spectacle justice. Were these storks? Does anyone know?


Thousands of migrating birds in a thermal.

I have been in touch with two local pilots since arriving in Ankara. An instructor living Ankara called Yigit who invited me as a guest on an SIV course in Olu Deniz this weekend (1st - 3rd Sept). My contract starts on Monday so unfortunately I cannot afford to travel such a distance in the circumstances. I have also been in correspondence with one of the Akcalar brothers - Hakan. He lives in Istanbul, but travels all around the country on weekends with his flying friends looking for epic cross country. You can see he and his brother have not been slacking if you check out their flights on Paragliding Forum's Leonardo online XC league. Here are some excerpts from his helpful e-mails to me:

Hi Mark. You're welcome to Turkey :) Here we have a XC group of friends. We usually decide what we do for the weekend on Thursdays. This is because of the weather forecasts allowing a three day foreseeing. These months are the best season in Turkey. 2 weeks ago the Turkey XC record has been put to 184km! Just let us know when you are ready for the weekend, then we will tell you what we are doing that weekend according to the weather. Our main destinations are denizli-cokelez, kayseri-ali dag, aksaray - ekecik. I cannot update our website nowadays but the XC flying in Turkey is running high :) We won't be attending to Bolu fest, it's just a fest, no XC there ...During September we have several organisations and competitions, don't hesitate to participate. ...

He told me about the action on the weekend that we arrived in Anakara. While the migrating birds were thermalling, so were these Turkish pilots:

Well, this weekend at Aksaray 6 pilots made 100+ km's, one 150+, some of them their first 100+, and the first turkish female made her 100+. Today another pilot made 135km at the same site ..We all hope this good weather conditions continues forever and strikes on weekends, but we will see.

I told Hakan that in the UK we typically have cloudbases of 5,000 ft (1,500 m), and in Cornwall as low as 2000 ft or less (600 m). I pointed out that this makes 100 km plus flights very challenging. I have a best distance of 55 km in the UK I told him. He replied:

We usually do not leave the hill until we are high above 3000 mt :)) We are used to soaring above 4000 mt's. Maybe you will need to be acclimatised before you do the same :)

When these dimensions hit me, it will be interesting to see how I cope! I MAY BE AN ACE AT BUZZING THE DUNES AT SENNEN, BUT HERE.... .

What about transport? These guys travel throughout this vast country. Weekend trips by car are often 8 hours plus. This was their system. It puts some of our efforts back in the UK to shame!

Transport to the city: by car, bus, plane, whatever comes handy. Usually you won't be alone, but if you do, we will give you directions. Transport to the take-off: we usually hire a local minibus there, you will just join the crowd and share the fee.

A cold front shut down XC flying in Turkey this weekend. It was in the mid 30s on Thursday and I thought I was getting heat exhaustion down in the city. Today we're down at 12 degrees and Annie has had cold feet can you believe it? But perhaps the colder air will produce truly epic conditions next weekend when I hope I can find the time away from work for an XC flying adventure. And let's see how Annie fares too! She's brave enough to fly in these conditions, but will she enjoy it and want more?