The Shark 600 aircraft landed in the early evening after 10 hours and 24 minutes of flight. Photo credit: shark.aero, via Facebook.
Dlouha Lhota, Central Bohemia, May 8 (CTK) – With a flight of 1,919 kilometres, pilots Jiri Prusa and Eliska Kudejova broke the world record for the longest flight in an ultralight aircraft without a stopover yesterday, Prusa told CTK after landing.
The Shark 600 aircraft, designated OK BUG-11, landed in the early evening after 10 hours and 24 minutes of flight at the Dlouha Lhota airport near Pribram, where it had taken off in the morning. The route took the pilots through Germany, Poland and Slovakia; the flight was complicated in places by strong headwinds and the originally planned route had to be shortened by 145 kilometres.
Yesterday’s record is yet to be officially confirmed by the International Aeronautical Federation, whose commissioner supervised the attempt. The previous record of 1,036 kilometres was set seven years ago by a Hungarian pilot.
“There was an easterly wind, so when we turned east over Berlin we felt it a lot, and there was a headwind over Poland at 30 kilometres per hour in places, so we didn’t fly as east as we wanted and we also missed Hungary,” Prusa said after landing.
The pilots took off at 8:06 a.m. and landed at 6:27 p.m. There were four turning points along the route, two in Germany, one in Poland and the last over the western Slovak town of Senica, where the Shark aircraft are manufactured. The originally planned route extended about 15 kilometres into Hungary, but in the end the aircraft headed directly from Slovakia to the Czech Republic.
The average speed during the flight was 188 km/h, and the highest downwind speed was 250 km/h. The pilots started the flight with 142 litres of fuel, with 14 litres left in the tank after the flight. The average consumption was about 14 litres per 100 kilometres.
