Skip to content
F101 Coach
Flyer card Full unit

Swipe sideways, or tap the dots. 5 screens.

Foundations · Stability · The brief

Freefly 101

Fly your back

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

What this unit covers

Covers back-fly as a piloted orientation: the neutral back-fly position, the range of motion around it, fall-rate range, heading changes, forward and backward drive, side slides, and the back-to-sit transition flown in both directions.
Freefly 100 establishes back-fly as the recovery position and proves a usable fall-rate range. This unit takes the same orientation and makes it something the flyer can steer. That matters for three reasons the curriculum relies on later.
The rest of it
A flyer who can drive and slide on their back can hold a slot without rolling to belly to fix it. A flyer who can change heading on their back can keep a group in sight through a recovery.
And the de-arch used to fly fast on the back is the same input that drives head-up out-face carving and layouts, so range built here is spent for the rest of the progression. Applies to flyers who have completed Freefly 100. Environment: tunnel for acquisition, sky for validation.
The tunnel is the strong recommendation for this unit, because back-fly drills are cheap on the net and every fault is visible to an instructor standing beside you. Supervision: coached, with the coach as reference, fading to solo consolidation jumps flown under the Freefly 100 solo protocols.

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?

3.11
Transition back-fly to sit and back to back-fly, re-establishing a settled neutral within 3 seconds of each.

Can you transition from back-fly to sit and back again, settling into a neutral position within about three seconds each way?

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 criterion marked not yet stops the sign-off, however good the rest of the flying was. There is no averaging across this line, and no trading a good jump against it.

Safety-critical criteria 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 unit 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. It is not a rating, it is not a permission to jump, and it does not replace anything the drop zone requires.

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 a recommended 10,000 ft minimum for the sky-validated criteria; tunnel sessions acceptable for the position and movement criteria.
Video of assessment sessions is required (coach-flown, helmet-mounted, ground-to-air or tunnel video, candidate identifiable), because the debrief loop and the evidence both depend on it.
Required equipment: visual altimeter, functioning audible altimeter (two on any solo jump), hard helmet, freefly-suitable gear to the Freefly 100 standard. Conditions within the candidate's cleared limits.
Assessor: a freefly coach current in coaching back-fly and head-up; tunnel components may be evidenced under an IBA-rated or equivalent instructor.
Assessment against the published FFP-F101 checklist, each criterion marked Satisfactory or Not Yet Satisfactory. Declare shoulder history before this unit. Back-fly carries load through the shoulder when the arms are out and back, and the back-to-sit transition loads it further.
A candidate with a history of shoulder dislocation, instability or reconstruction should raise it with the coach so arm position and the recovery sequence can be adjusted and medical clearance sought where appropriate. A shoulder that cannot reach the BOC is a deployment failure.

Performance evidence

Ability evidenced across a suggested guide of 6 sessions, counting tunnel sessions and jumps together. The number is a guide to how long the unit usually takes; assimilated skill against the criteria, not the number, is the standard.
Because this unit's skills are almost entirely position and movement work, tunnel time may substitute for up to half the skill-development evidence, though not for the altitude-awareness, breakoff or deployment criteria, which are sky-only.
Evidence should span at least two different days or conditions, including two consecutive sessions meeting all criteria without coach assistance or prompts, within a recommended 6-month currency window.
Suggested tunnel accelerators: neutral back-fly off the net, fall-rate range, heading changes each way, forward and backward drive with clean stops, side slides, and back-to-sit transitions in both directions.

Screen 5 · Debrief

Debrief

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

Coaching priorities

Deliver in the project's priority order: Safety → Fun → Learning (curriculum Part A0). Hold bold safety criteria to the standard above. Design the session to be enjoyable: participants choose this expensive hobby, and enjoyment sustains both the student and the sport.
Set one declared objective per session to keep cognitive load light, and end debriefs on a win with one improvement focus.
Brief the unit in terms of what it buys: every skill here is one the flyer will use inside a formation, and the flyer who owns their back can fix a slot instead of leaving it. > Watch: Back-fly neutral position (AXIS Flight School), youtube.com/watch?v=uNgvf6GJgxw > > Watch: Back-fly turns (AXIS Flight School), youtube.com/watch?v=CkjFA7ZY7f4

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. Six points is six points forgotten by the next load.

A jump marked not yet is a jump to re-fly, not a failure, and saying so out loud is part of the debrief.

Record this jump

Your notes for this unit

Saved on this device only. Nothing is sent anywhere, there is nowhere for it to go, and no account is involved. They will be here next time you open this card.

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