Load organising for freefly

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.

When you organise a load, your decisions affect everyone on it, including people who never asked you to coach them.

For the flying itself, see exit order and separation for the separation logic, calculating drift for formations for the arithmetic, and what a movement leader owns for leading a movement group once it is in the air.

Work it out with the other leaders, before the call

Start with a conversation, before anyone draws a plan. Every other group leader and instructor on that load needs to know what you intend, and you need to know what they intend.

The aim is that everybody opens clear of everybody else. Every decision on this page serves that aim.

Order the load by drift

Exit order follows how far each group will drift and how much airspace it needs. Both come from freefall time and horizontal movement.

A working order, adjusted for the day:

1. Movement group.
2. Belly groups, largest to smallest.
3. Freefly groups, largest to smallest.
4. A second movement group, flying a different direction from the first.
5. Students.
6. Tandems.
7. High pulls.
8. Wingsuits.

The second movement group goes ahead of the students, so fast, mobile canopies are not arriving in a student landing pattern.

Board the aircraft in reverse exit order. A load that has to rearrange itself at altitude wastes time, and the confusion leads to mistakes.

Slower-falling groups drift further because they spend longer in freefall. Drift comes from the time in freefall, whatever the orientation.

Separate by ground covered

When the winds at height are strong, the separation between opening points depends on how much ground the aircraft covers between exits. A fixed count of seconds gives a different distance every day, so counting alone is unreliable.

Watch the ground and know your groundspeed. A slow run-in into a strong wind needs longer than the number you used last weekend.

No more than two movement groups

Plan no more than two movement groups on one load, unless the drop zone safety officer approves more. A skills camp is the usual case. Each movement group takes a large volume of airspace. Two groups can fly opposite or diverging directions, and a third has no clean airspace left.

Some drop zones, Hunter Valley for example, set this as a rule.

Fly the two groups in different directions. If strong upper winds push both the same way, split the airspace into sectors, one group each side, with a set buffer between them.

Declare every movement plan to manifest, so the groups are deconflicted before boarding. Each leader then talks the navigation plan through with the load master before the jump: the flight path, its direction, and the exit point and order.

Everybody knows where they are meant to be

Draw the intended flight path on the board before the detail. Do it even when the load is running late, which is when it helps most. Other groups and the load organiser can then read your intent at a glance during their own dirt dives. Label the groups clearly.

Then confirm the six things every movement plan needs:

• Direction.
• Distance.
• The breakoff and separation plan.
• The opening area.
• The initial canopy direction.
• A plan B.

Plan B is a straight-down jump. Nobody moves across the sky intentionally, everybody flies an orientation they are solid in, and breakoff and deployment are standard. It stays available until the door opens, and calling it is a normal decision.

Cloud is one of the usual reasons to call it. Keep movement jumps out of cloud and away from it, because the leader navigates off the ground for the whole jump.

Canopy priority

Canopy size and swooping play no part in the exit order. A fast canopy can fit into the pattern, or land straight in.

After opening, stay away from the jump run line until you have seen the other groups’ canopies open.

Screening, and the authority to say no

An organiser needs the authority to leave somebody off a jump they are not suited to, and the willingness to use it. A drop zone that gives an organiser the responsibility without that authority leaves them unable to act.

Screen on what people have flown: with whom, and how recently. Ask other coaches whether this person is safe, and whether they own their mistakes. A jumper who makes errors and names them is a much better prospect than one who hides them.

Design the jump for the least experienced person on it. Give a weaker flyer more room and a set quadrant, clear of the densest traffic.

For beginner angles, keep the group to three people at most, including the coach. A beginner joins a bigger group with their coach’s approval.

Apply those limits to belly and back separately. A flyer cleared for bigger groups on their belly learns the basics of back orientation in groups of three or fewer first.

Build the formation for safety first, then for learning

Slot people for safety first: who can fly next to whom. Then adjust the slots for what each person is working on.

Plan the breakoff with the formation: who goes where, what a flyer does if they are behind, and what everybody does if the leader is taken out. Brief each of those.

Then rehearse it as a load

Run it from climb-out to breakoff, then run it again. If there are errors, run it until it is clean, and if anybody looks unsure, go again.

The first jump of the day is a good one for letting people feel out the conditions and each other before the plan gets ambitious.

After the load

Debrief the group, and give each flyer one thing to work on. Then look at the load as a whole. Did the openings end up clear, did the order work, and did anything nearly happen?

Talk through near misses, because that is how a drop zone learns from them. An organiser who raises their own makes it easier for everyone else to raise theirs.

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Advisory, educational content. Exit order, group sizes and leader approvals are governed by your national federation and your drop zone, and local policy prevails over anything here. Some material on this page is drawn from contributed coach-development notes.