You can leave safety up to the individual pilots or you can build safety into your system. There was only two minor accidents that resulted in injury to pilots during the 2007 Worlds. That is, if we ignore the pool party. Beer, vodka, Red Bull, and water - a dangerous combination.

We planned for two years for safety building on the record of the Flytec Championships held at Quest Air and the previous meets in Big Spring. There was an absolute requirement for certain types of bridles, weak links, and secondary releases. The tug pilots were experienced and well trained. The ground crew leaders were very experienced and very much in charge.

Every pilot had to document their aerotowing experience and every pilot was checked out by Drew to determine if they could safely tow. Unlike at the previous women's worlds in 2006 at Quest Air, every pilot displayed sufficient skills to tow safely.

Drew Harris and Flavia set up the staging lines after many vigorous discussions of how they should be laid out. These debates allowed for all the concerned parties to state their views. The ground crew was concentrated and never over taxed or spread out through more than two lines. This meant that there was always more than sufficient crew to assure safety.

Every pilot was checked and reassured. Ever pilot was told every time to hold onto the cart (the orange hose handles were the best - see below) until they were flying. The one accident that happened on the line came when a pilot had taken off his wheels (he was the only pilot flying with wheels) and when he came off the cart slow and too early. His English wasn't good so he may not have understood the requests for him to hold on and he was one of the least experienced pilots at the Worlds.

The staging lines were widely separated separating the tug traffic to avoid collisions. The Big Spring airport is huge and we had plenty of room.

Because we were launching from an asphalt taxi way and not a grass field, it was super important that pilots hold on hard to the carts. The cart would start easily (keeping the weaklink from breaking) and would get going fast quickly, which had a different feel than the grass fields. Pilots were taught to make sure that they can enough speed to fly out of any trouble if a weaklink broke.

We did have one minor injury at a landing field that I chose. The field was inappropriate for landing (it was part of a small air field) as it contained power lines, fences, and stakes. The Google Earth photo was not sharp enough to provide the task committee with a clear picture of what was there. I should have seen that problem. Numerous pilots had difficulty landing there, but one pilot had to have five stitches (he flew the next day).

This is the first worlds to use Google Earth to position the goal points as well as give pilots an idea of where they were going and what it would look like when they got there. That was for the most part very successful. I used a projector hooked up to my computer and I could display the weather, the task (in SeeYou) and the task in Google Earth.

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