Becoming a freefly coach

This page outlines study material for a developing coach. It is informed by the Australian Parachute Federation’s coaching material, and by research into best practice from parallel disciplines such as gymnastics and aviation.

If you already do one-on-ones with beginners, take friends on their first head-up jumps, or answer questions at the packing mat, you are coaching. The approval puts structure and accountability around work that is already happening.

Australia: the Freefly Coach approval

Australia has a coach approval specific to freefly. Most national bodies have general instructional ratings and leave freefly to experienced jumpers.

The pathway is set out in the Australian Parachute Federation’s coach assessment and appointment document and its regulatory schedules. In outline, it asks for:

• Substantial experience, including a senior certificate class, a meaningful number of descents, and the freefly crests for the orientations you plan to coach.
• A chief instructor’s selection and recommendation, which comes before any training.
• An approved course of training.
• An assessment with a written part and a practical part.
• A probation period, then reconfirmation on a cycle, with a minimum of recent activity.

Two features of the assessment are useful to know in advance. It examines coaching technique in its own right, separately from the regulations and from flying skill. It also has a freefly section, on top of the general material every coach sits.

The federation publishes the document, and it is the authority on all of this. It is updated from time to time, so work from the current version and treat any summary, this one included, as a guide to it.

Before the course

Most of the assessment tests knowledge you already use in day-to-day coaching, so coaching is the best preparation.

• Learn the regulations properly, especially separation, altitude requirements, group sizes and what a training descent requires. A wrong answer on these has consequences in the air.
• Learn to teach as well as fly. The coaching articles on this site cover it: principles of instruction, briefing a coached jump, the debrief and reading your student.
• Know your operational procedures thoroughly. See operational procedures for coaches.
• Coach under supervision first. Assist an existing coach, take the debrief while they take the brief, and ask for feedback on your feedback. It costs nothing and prepares you directly.
• Be honest about your own flying. You cannot assess a standard you cannot fly, so work out which orientations you are current in.

The courses on this site state the standard a coach judges against. Use them as a checklist for where your own flying sits before you start assessing anyone else’s.

Elsewhere, briefly

Coaching qualifications vary a lot between countries, which is useful to know if you travel or coach visitors. Freefly qualifications around the world goes into more detail.

United States. There is no freefly rating. The general Coach rating is a teaching qualification, covering adult learning, lesson design and structured feedback, and it applies across all disciplines. Freefly guidance sits in the manual as recommendations, so in practice the drop zone sets the standard.

United Kingdom. Coaching is a separate track from the instructor ladder. There is a long-standing freefly coach qualification. There is now also a tiered, externally accredited coaching system developed with the national coaching body. That system teaches coaching itself and expects you to bring the flying.

Canada. A tiered system. The freefly level is mostly technical, and the coaching skills are taught in the general lower levels, which connect to the National Coaching Certification Programme.

In all three, coaching skill and freefly technique are almost always taught in separate places. One organisation owns the teaching, another owns the discipline, and the coach joins them up. The coaching section of this site exists to close that gap.

After the approval

The approval is a starting point. Two things keep it meaningful.

Currency. Fly what you teach, regularly. The renewal minimums are a floor.

Someone watching you coach. Well-developed instructional systems in aviation and skydiving build in standardisation: instructors are observed from time to time and checked against each other. Freefly coaching mostly has no such system, so arrange it yourself. Ask another coach to watch a session and tell you what they would have done differently.

Asking is uncomfortable, and it is the fastest way to improve.

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Advisory, educational content, not regulatory advice. Coach approval requirements are set by your national federation, vary between countries and change over time. Always work from the current published requirements and your chief instructor’s guidance.