Absolute and unsurpassable record (Saturday 6th September 2003)
"That's cool," an SMS came in a while from J. Simek. I'm looking for an error in it even now.
Of course, I wondered how Altynai will go on on its way, so I was downloading the data continuously during the day. Nothing much. I waited to see it not until 5 PM after two low-quality coordinates arrived. I did not pay much attention to them although they seemed very different from yesterday's last ones. I thought we'd receive much more precise data soon. Half an hour later, high quality coordinates really appeared whose error is below a few hundred meters. I clicked on it and Altynai's trace showed on the monitor. I starred at it slack-jawed. She made 675 kilometers since yesterday!!!
The storks usually fly 100 to 300 kilometers per day. Four hundred kilometers is a really big stuff and Roman keeps current record in the daily flight - 565 kilometers. Is it ever possible that Altynai flew 675 kilometers per day? The thing is quite complicated and there're one one small and one bigger trouble with it. The smole one is that three yesterday's coordinates taken after 1 pm GMT are average quality. Two of them agree and the third is different. We can surely believe the better from nearly the same pair - the distance of 675 kilometers would then change minimally. The bigger problem is the time Altynai was localized last time. It was 20 minutes till the dusk at 13.20 GMT near Karaganda where Altynai just stayed. It was almost one hour till the civil twilight, and more than 2 hours till the astronomical twilight. Could she fly a few tens of kilometers at twilight? I suppose not. It's 19.30 in Prague now, ten minutes till the sunset and the dusk is deep. Under such condition, the storks usually fly no more than a few hundred meters to the tree where they're going to spend the night. We never noticed they fly bigger distances after the sunset. Even from today's coordinates it's clear - Altynai stopped half an hour before the sunset.
Consequently: We are sure Altynai flew 1100 kilometers in the last few days. It's very probable - if not sure - that she reached 675 kilometers today.
All in all, we are witnesses to the absolute and apparently unsurpassable record. It really takes one's breath...