Kit Flying Vs Flying alone

In Europe, US and most part of Middle East too the races for both Tipplers and Tumblers are held for a kit of birds. The minimum kit size if 3 birds and the flight time is considered as the flight time of the bird which lands first. If a bird fly separately from its kit for more that 1 hour or 30 minutes in some clubs, the bird/whole kit gets disqualified.

In TamilNadu, most of the races are for individual birds and not for kits. In some clubs although the race is for individual birds, they are allowed to fly as a kit. But in Chennai, flying as kit is not allowed. Here if a bird joins with other bird, its considered useless. People put lot of effort to breed birds such that they get the bloodline which can fly alone. These blood lines surprisingly fly alone even if several birds are released from same loft at the same time. All of these keep flying alone for several hours. They fly as a kit but not more than few minutes.

Its surprising to see such varied kind of interest among fanciers. Pigeon fanciers here say that its very easy to have birds which fly as kit but the real challenge is to get birds that can fly alone. I myself have 3 tipplers which are flying now and they are flying for 4-5 hours daily. But they are flying as a kit. I cant participate with them in race as they will get disqualified. The good thing is that if I release just one of them on a day, the bird if flying alone for same 4-5 hours . This is a good sign because many birds wont fly for long hours if they are released alone . I can try to selectively breed them somehow and try to get the "flying alone" capability.