The Australian freefly crest system, explained

In Australia, the Freefly Crest decides how many people you can freefly with. It sits between jumps on your own or in 2-ways and 3-ways, and the larger groups above them. Once you know where the crest sits, the rest of the freefly progression is easier to follow.

What a crest is

The Freefly Crest is the APF qualification that controls who can join a freefly group. It comes in two streams, the Freefly Crest Head-Up and the Freefly Crest Head-Down, so your crest matches the orientation you have shown you can fly.

The two streams came from splitting an earlier single crest by orientation. The Australian Skydiver Magazine record documents the change, and the current regulatory schedules carry it.

The APF sets all of this. The crest, the sign-off chain and the higher Star Crest are defined in the APF Operational Regulations, the APF Training Operations Manual and the APF Regulatory Schedules. The Freefly and Angles Guide (APF006) is educational and supports the training. The governing policy is in those three documents.

What the crest controls

These are group-size requirements. In broad terms, and always read against the current regulations:

• A Freefly Crest Head-Up covers head-up jumps of more than three people, up to a 10-way.
• A Freefly Crest Head-Down covers head-down jumps of more than three people.
• Above a 10-way, you also need an Australian Star Crest, or an acceptable foreign equivalent, alongside the crest for the orientation.
• Before you hold a crest, even a 2-way training jump needs the drop zone safety officer’s approval. A 3-way needs extra approval for that specific training jump.

For head-down, that comes to the crest above a 3-way, and the crest plus a Star Crest above a 10-way. Angles have their own ladder in the regulations, with their own certificate and endorsement requirements and a Star Crest for the largest groups.

How the assessment works

The crest assessment is two prescribed jumps, taken from the dive flows in the APF Freefly Training Table in the APF Training Operations Manual. A current Freefly Coach watches and verifies both. There are no extra crest jumps on top of them.

Your coach marks each part of the dive flow Satisfactory or Not Yet Satisfactory, then judges the flow as a whole. The crest takes two consecutive jumps where the whole flow meets every criterion, without coach help or prompting. One good jump on its own does not count.

The safety-critical items stand on their own. If you miss your breakoff, the jump does not pass, however good the rest of the flow was.

The paperwork runs through your logbook. A current Freefly Coach and the drop zone safety officer sign each stage. When you finish, the chief instructor endorses your logbook as competent and safe and gives written approval. You then send the crest application on the prescribed form, with the fee.

Once you have the crest, a good next step is a block of jumps in small groups before you try anything larger.

The crest and the big-way courses

The crest is a permission: it sets the size of group you can join. The big-way courses at the top of The Freefly Project’s catalog work differently. They are Mastery milestones. Finishing one shows a level of skill, and it carries no rating or endorsement. The group sizes you can jump in still come from your crest, the regulations and your drop zone.

Outside Australia

Other countries handle the same question in their own way. British Skydiving grades freefly with FF1, a head-up standard, and FF2, a head-down one. Canada requires a freefly briefing and keeps you with a coach until you are cork-proof. The USPA publishes recommendations and has no freefly qualification, so the drop zone decides.

In every system, someone qualified decides when you are ready for a bigger group. For how five countries handle it, with the documents and links for each, see Freefly qualifications around the world.

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Advisory, educational content. The current APF Operational Regulations, APF Training Operations Manual and APF Regulatory Schedules are the governing documents. Confirm the rules that apply to you with your federation and drop zone.