I would like to briefly tell you about one of my Dolapçi flight methods. I think the performance breed keepers who enjoy directing their birds during the flight will find it interesting.

Since I live in the middle of nature, surrounded by mountains, before starting to fly my birds I have to watch for raptors. For this reason, I get my birds to fly up to the roof first so they have an chance to observe their environment. If I see all of them turning their heads to one direction and continuously look at one spot, and if I look at there also, most likely I will see a raptor like a falcon or a hawk. At this time, I postpone the flight. Instead of this if there are wood pigeons, rock pigeons, ring doves or turtle doves are passing by, most likely there is no danger present.

If the situation is right, I use an 8m. (about 26 feet) long fishing pool, with a flag tied to the tip of it, to start the flight. By standing the pool strait up, I wait for the pigeons to get to the height of the clouds. A kit that consists of dolapcis will fly very tight until this height. If you carefully look at the picture above you will notice the birds flying like little spots.

When the kit up above is about to get out of sight it is time to fly the second kit which has a smaller number of birds in it.  When this kit is released, first kit will respond by very fast and swift performance while the second kit gain altitude rapidly to meet them at a mid point.  In general, I use kelebeks for the second kit. If I am going to repeat this process a third time this kit will be made out of yozs. Even though the dolapcis normally start gaining altitude with the kelebeks again, they will stay in a set altitude when the yozs are included in the kit.

This way by releasing the second and third kits I get a chance to watch the performance of my dolapcis with out showing droppers. IF no droppers show the kits will continue to fly in circles above the loft with out loosing any altitude. Since the yoz kit can not fly for long periods it is time to show the droppers.

As the type of dropper, I use the door droppers. I mean, instead of showing a single bird, I open the doors of the loft and get a large number of birds to fly up to the roof top. Opening the doors while the kits are in a good position to clearly see the loft is important to maximize the quality and the quantity of performances.

The moment the birds see the door droppers is the moment their most impressive performances start. While the dolapcis almost throw themselves down by shortening and increasing the velocity of  spins they were doing before, yoz kit will dive by locking their wings. Kelebeks will dive after everybody else. Above, you can see tehmoment dolapcis start to perform.

Since the yoz kit will dive extremely quick seeing the droppers the dolapcis and the kelebeks stay behind. While the portion of the dolapcis going through adolescence and feeding babies dive much faster like they are ripping the air, the young birds and the ones have not completed their training will dive with sparse spins in a slower pace. The moment I wait for is the moment of the droppers, when most of the dolapcis show their best performances.

Between the beginning of the flight and the last dolapçi to land there is about 35 minutes. For a well trained group with out any yoz in it the maximum flight time is 120 minutes. And if there is no raptor attack during this flight...