Oh!

58 Skylane: You are correct that flying down river on the left side is correct. It gives you about 2-3 seconds to commit or abort.

I have seen several videos of Wilson Bar out there on the net and did not think much of them. The best perspective you can get about short final into Wilson Bar from a video is the Idaho Exposed one. One of the problems when you come back solo is remembering which of the set of sand bars and rapids are the reference points. Well I found that if you watch the Idaho Exposed version several times you will see that one of the main clues comes from looking a bit further down stream and watch for when the canyon transitions from a relatively narrow VEE and rounds out to a wider U or saddle shape. Then you will be almost on top of it.

Grasstripper: You are right also, doing the pattern in reverse is a bit of a thrill ride. My first demo of Wilson Bar came at the end of a three hour historical tour by the legendary Jim Larkin. We were running late, so we were only planning doing the approach to the abort point across the rive,. 20dg. flaps at 70 indicated down stream, slowing to 60 when we see the rapids. Well, we were about three seconds into the abort and power up when Jim asked, "Ya mind if I go ahead try one?" "All yours Jim." Well, he proceeded to do a complete figure eight+ over the river, and a more than 90 degree turn back to the strip. We did not touch down till almost a third of the way in, but made it with room to spare. There is a short over run slightly uphill to the right, but he did not need it. I did utilize it for the take off though. Talk about dizzy. He just made me promise to never tell Lori.

I once talked to one of the guys who work with Wup at Alaska bushwheel and he said the approach to Wilson bar is the same as that for Dewey Moore only dewey moore is a bit shorter final. I figure it's about the same thing for Wilson bar. If you hit the numbers or within 50 feet of the numbers you are safe on roll out. The key to all these Idaho strips is to hit within 50 feet of the end of the runway. Do that consistantly and you should have no problem at anything up there. So I practice slow flight and slow power on approaches to touch down at the numbers.