Hugh mentioned that he was nearly blown over the back at Apache Maid, and he asked for suggestions. This is a great safety topic, one we should cover in a future meeting, but perhaps we can begin the discussion here.

1. Safety in The Bar?!! Yes, your speed bar is a piece of safety equipment. Before you ever begin ridge soaring, you must ensure that your speed bar is properly installed, is effective, and you have the confidence and ability to use it properly. This includes being able to engage it without being a contortionist, dropping the brakes, or standing on your ear.

2. Have a plan. Before launching into what you hope is a ridge soaring flight, think through your flight plan. This includes periodic penetration checks and what you will do in the event the wind strength increases to the point where your penetration drops into single digits.

3. Execute on that plan. Every few laps, or whenever you notice an increase in the wind strength, turn into the wind and measure your off-bar, trim-speed penetration. If it drops into single-digit land (mph ground speed), it's time to push out away from the hill. Since you're already pointing that way, just relax, fly efficiently, and if necessary, add some speed bar to get away rapidly. As you push away from the hill, you will fall out of the lift band, and once that's done, you will usually be out of danger for being blown over the back. Now you can focus your attention on finding a decent place to land, keeping in mind that you must continue flying efficiently and that lateral motion will come from very slight adjustments in your crab angle, not by making a substantial turn, which could put you back into the lift band.

4. It didn't work! If the wind changes quickly enough, your wing is slow, or you were having too much fun to notice the impending problem, you may find yourself making slow, but steady progress...backwards. This is not a particularly good time to panic. Remain pointed directly into the wind, fly efficiently with as much bar as you can safely apply under the circumstances (taking a monster collapse because the air is turbulent and you're mashing the bar will certainly not improve the situation). This is where the other part of the flight plan comes in. You know, the plan you made before leaving the ground? Before launching you talked with your fellow pilots and decided what you would do in this situation. It varies, a lot, with the terrain, so there is no one right answer. But, in general, the goal is to minimize the violence of the mechanical turbulence through which you are now likely to fly. Sometimes this can be done by crabbing off to one side of the hill. In other cases, it's a matter of turning and running over the lowest, smoothest part of the hill. The point is, you cannot be expected to work this out in the air, while under the stress of the situation. Once you recognize you're going over the back, you need to execute on a plan that was made with a cool head on the ground.

So, about that plan, then. You, as the pilot in command, are responsible for making one. And, if you're new to the site, you should get help from someone who has experience with the site. If you're headed out for a ridge-soaring flight, part of the site introduction really should include a discussion of preferred escape routes. Whenever I take a new pilot to Mustang, I try to use the windshield time on the way down there to talk through my escape plan for that particular site. In any case, if your host doesn't provide this information, then please ask for it.

I'm hoping others will join in and offer their views on this topic. We often take our newest pilots to Mustang, which has a propensity to blow pilots over the back. Apache Maid provides perhaps the most beautiful glass-off in the state but also carries the blow-back risk. So, let's do whatever we can to help all pilots, especially the new ones, be prepared for this risk.