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Foundations · Stability · The brief

Freefly 101

Fly your back

Back-fly as a position you actively pilot, not just survive.

What the course is about

You'll learn to fly your back with control: hold heading, change fall rate, turn, drive, side-slide, and transition to a sit and back. This follows Freefly 100, where back-fly is the freefly recovery position. Here you learn to work in it. In Australia, freefly training needs at least a Certificate B.

What comes before it

Screen 2 · What to watch

What to watch

The same short list the flyer sees on their card, in the same words.

3.8
Drive forward a briefed distance (guide: 5 to 10 m) and arrest the drive completely, finishing on heading with no residual movement.

Can you drive forward on your back, five to ten metres, and stop the drive completely with nothing left running?

3.10
Side-slide left and right a briefed distance, stopping on heading after each slide.

Can you side-slide left and right on your back, a briefed distance each way, and stop on heading after each one?

3.12 Safety critical
Arrest any unplanned drive on recognition, before it accumulates, and correct back toward the briefed working area rather than letting successive drives carry you out of your own column.

Do you notice unplanned drive early and correct it, rather than letting it carry you out of your own column?

Screen 3 · What blocks a sign-off

What blocks a sign-off

A safety-critical item marked not yet stops the sign-off, however good the rest of the flying was. The rest of the jump cannot make up for it.

Safety-critical items on the short list

3.12
Arrest any unplanned drive on recognition, before it accumulates, and correct back toward the briefed working area rather than letting successive drives carry you out of your own column.

Do you notice unplanned drive early and correct it, rather than letting it carry you out of your own column?

Everything this course says about breakoff and deployment

1.4
State the altitude for ending work and the planned deployment altitude (breakoff guides: 5,000 ft up to a 4-way and 5,500 ft for 5 or more, noting most modern jumpers set 5,500 ft for any freefly group and will generally not accept 4,500 ft).
4.2
End the jump per the briefed protocol: on a coached jump, transition to belly, slow to belly fall rate and track 90° from jump run while checking airspace; on a solo consolidation jump, end the work without tracking (turn 90°, pause, slow down, transition to a belly orientation), dissipating speed over at least 1,000 ft before deployment, because a soloist's movement risks are already the dominant hazard.
4.3
Deploy at the planned altitude, at belly fall rate, after clearing airspace.

Recording a sign-off says what you saw on one jump. Permission to jump, and anything the drop zone requires, stay with the drop zone.

Screen 4 · Conditions

Conditions

Where the evidence is allowed to come from, and how much of it there needs to be.

Assessment conditions

- Sky jumps from 10,000 ft or higher (recommended) for the sky criteria. Tunnel sessions are acceptable for the position and movement criteria, and can count for up to half the skill practice.
Useful tunnel drills: the neutral off the net, fall-rate range, heading changes each way, forward and backward drive with clean stops, side slides, and back-to-sit in both directions.
Video of every assessment session, with the flyer identifiable: coach-flown, helmet-mounted, ground-to-air or tunnel video. The debrief depends on it.
Equipment: a visual altimeter, a working audible (two on any jump flown on your own), a hard helmet, and freefly-suitable gear to the Freefly 100 standard.
Conditions within the flyer's cleared limits.
The assessor is a freefly coach current in coaching back-fly and head-up. An IBA-rated or equivalent tunnel instructor can sign off tunnel work.
Each criterion is marked Satisfactory or Not Yet Satisfactory against the published F101 checklist.
Ask about shoulder history before the course. With a history of dislocation, instability or reconstruction, adjust the arm position and the recovery sequence, and seek medical clearance where appropriate.
As a guide, it takes about six sessions, coached then solo, over at least two days or sets of conditions within six months.
Up to half can be tunnel sessions; altitude checks, breakoff and deployment are flown in the sky.
If you already fly your back, your coach can assess you on one coached sky jump, using tunnel records at International Bodyflight Association Static Level 2 or above, your logbook or video.
A freefly crest or grade, such as the Australian head-up crest or British Skydiving FF1, credits the air skills; you still fly the sky items and talk through the solo protocol.

Performance evidence

After each session, debrief the video with your coach, name where your control ran out first and why, and log it with one fix. You've finished Freefly 101 when you fly two sessions in a row that meet everything on the coach's checklist below.

Screen 5 · Debrief

Debrief

Safety first, then fun, then learning. In that order, every time.

Coaching priorities

- Safety first, then fun, then learning. Hold the bold criteria to the standard above.
Plan sessions to be enjoyable: flyers choose this expensive hobby, and enjoying it keeps them in the sport.
Set one objective per session to keep the flyer's workload light, and end each debrief on something that went well, with one thing to improve.
Brief each skill by where the flyer will use it in a formation. A flyer who can steer their back can fix a slot without leaving it.
Correct first the fault the flyer hasn't noticed. Call a range-of-motion pass (criterion 3.5) to make an unnoticed limit visible.
If what you see isn't in the fault table, stop the session and refer the flyer to a rated coach before trying a correction.

One fault, one correction

Ask for their read before you give yours. Then leave them with one fault and one correction, in their words if you can get them. One of each is easier to carry onto the next load than six points.

A jump marked not yet is a jump to fly again. Tell them that as part of the debrief.

Record this jump

Your notes for this course

Saved on this device only, with no account. They will be here next time you open this card.

This card is a summary. The full Freefly 101 course page carries the reasoning, the sources and everything left off here. All briefing cards.