Jim Payne after his 2,701 km flight. Photo/Provided

Jim Payne from Minden has won his third consecutive world championship in the Aerokurier Online Soaring Contest.

This yearlong contest has 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 website for scoring.

Payne’s six best distance flights covered 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 was 223 km per hour (139 miles per hour). This is his seventh world championship in eight years in the speed category.

Payne’s 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.