why contrive to make it optional? Unless lots of high-flying is involved, I'm not sure why the tried-and-tested template from Chasm Drake wouldn't work.

It can never backfire, since it can always target itself. And the game no longer penalises you for forgetting meaningless triggers. But who cares about that?

What we have here is a flying creature that you can ride. Yay! The tension here is that this has stats of a blocking wall, and so you'd rather not attack with it. It is nicely unlikely to die on an attack; I suppose.