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HD101 Coach
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Head Down · Stability · The brief

Head-Down 101

Find and hold vertical head-down

Finding vertical and holding it.

What this unit covers

Covers finding and holding a stable vertical head-down orientation as a solo skill: exits presenting head and shoulders to the relative wind, establishing vertical off the horizon reference, holding a neutral head-down position to the shuttlecock principle, back-fly→head-down transitions, monitoring drift against a ground reference, and cork-proof recovery at head-down speeds (270–400+ km/h, APF006 §7.1).
Applies to flyers competent in HU 102 (solo head-up movement). Three neutral head-down positions exist: straddle, daffy and shelf. Knowing all three and transitioning seamlessly between them is the advanced skill, and HD101 flyers are encouraged to learn the strengths and weaknesses of each.
The rest of it
Tunnel routes typically teach the daffy first for static progression, then the shelf. The straddle, legs wide and slightly bent, calves and outer thighs providing drag (APF006 §7.4), is common for flyers who learn head-down in the sky.
The soloist flies unaccompanied sky work in a daffy with a continuous slow static turn per the FFP-F100 solo protocol (the project's coaching doctrine). Environment: sky solo work.
Tunnel drills are the recommended preparation. Supervision: coaching starts with coach-held tunnel drills, moves to the coach flying as a tunnel or sky reference, and ends at coach-briefed unaccompanied solos.
Early sky attempts should be solo or with a suitably qualified coach as reference, never with another unqualified flyer as the reference.

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.

3.3
Hold a neutral head-down position (straddle, daffy or shelf) for 10 seconds in the tunnel or with a coached reference, holding heading within ±45° and finishing in the same quadrant. More pressure stays on the legs than the arms: the shuttlecock principle.

Can you hold a neutral head-down position for ten seconds on heading, in the tunnel or with a coach as your reference?

3.4
Perform a controlled back-fly-to-head-down transition, re-establishing vertical within 5 seconds.

Can you transition from back-fly to head down and be vertical again within about five seconds?

3.7 Safety critical
Execute the vertical recovery position immediately on any loss of the head-down position, maintaining freefly fall rate without corking.

When you lose the head-down position, do you go to the vertical recovery position straight away, keeping freefly speed rather than corking?

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

3.7
Execute the vertical recovery position immediately on any loss of the head-down position, maintaining freefly fall rate without corking.

When you lose the head-down position, do you go to the vertical recovery position straight away, keeping freefly speed rather than corking?

Everything this unit says about breakoff and deployment

1.3
State the work-cease altitude and the deployment altitude. 5,500 ft is standard practice for the work-cease; ≥4,500 ft is the bare guide, and it is always at least 1,000 ft above planned deployment.
4.2
End solo work without tracking: turn 90°, pause, recover to back-fly, slow down, then transition to a belly orientation, dissipating speed over at least 1,000 ft before deployment. A soloist's movement risks are already the dominant hazard; movement at breakoff belongs in formation jumps, where it is practised and needed.
4.3
Deploy at the planned altitude, at belly fall rate, after checking 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. Video of assessment jumps is required (coach-flown, ground-to-air or tunnel video; candidate identifiable).
Required equipment: visual altimeter, two functioning audibles for unaccompanied solo jumps, regarded as mandatory best practice (one functioning audible is the regulatory floor on any freefly descent in Australia, the APF Operational Regulations), AAD recommended, and freefly-suitable gear per the FFP-F100 gear audit.
Conditions within the candidate's cleared limits. Declare shoulder history before vertical work. The sit-to-head-down transition loads the shoulder joint hard, and the Australian record carries serious cases: a shoulder dislocation that prevented the flyer reaching the BOC (ASM 56 p.74) and torn shoulder ligaments (ASM 83 p.25).
A candidate with a history of shoulder dislocation, instability or reconstruction should raise it with the coach before head-down work, so exit presentation, 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, not just a flying limitation. Assessor: a freefly coach current in head-down coaching, using the published FFP-HD101 checklist with each criterion marked Satisfactory / Not Yet Satisfactory.
Tunnel-route evidence is assessed by a qualified head-down tunnel coach (IBA or equivalent instructional system). Teaching techniques vary between systems, and tunnel arm positions may need sky adaptation.

Performance evidence

Ability is typically evidenced across around 8 solo head-down jumps flown to the FFP-F100 solo protocol, each coach-briefed and video-debriefed. Tunnel time may substitute for up to three of the skill-development jumps, but not the assessment jumps.
The evidence spans at least two different days/conditions, including two consecutive jumps meeting all criteria without coach assistance or prompts, within a recommended 6-month currency window.
The jump count is a guide to how long the unit might take, not a quota, competency against the criteria, not the number, is the standard.
Recommended tunnel preparation: neutral head-down flown off the net at moderate-to-fast wind speeds, fall-rate control up and down, turns each way, and the sit↔head-down flip transitions, with bail-to-back-fly as the standing recovery throughout (coach maintains a grip in early drills). Before the first unaccompanied sky daffy: tunnel video evidence of a stable head-down daffy with turns (FFP-F100 solo protocol entry requirement).
Tunnel hours are a guide to how long it might take: a tunnel route to solid static head-down typically takes 10–20 hours, depending on whether the flyer is also chasing dynamic skills. The standard is the performance criteria above.

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). Never trade the safety-critical standards (the solo protocol of daffy, static turn and two audibles) for progress or throughput. Set one declared objective per jump to keep cognitive load light and the jump enjoyable.
End debriefs on a win with one improvement focus for the next jump. Physical preparation (era coaching wisdom). Head-down and its precursor positions make specific, sustained demands on the legs and hips. Tunnel blocks run up to ~2 minutes, so the conditioning that helps is isometric holds, not reps.
Period Australian coaching (Tracey Lane) recommended, position-specific: isometric wall-sits held up to ~2 minutes to match a tunnel block for head-up/sit endurance, pressing through the heels and targeting the quads rather than the knees.
Single-leg balance work for asymmetric docks.
Hamstring bridges for back-fly recovery.
And toe-dorsiflexion plus hip-flexor work for the daffy and head-down positions (ASM 79 pp.28–29). Offer this as optional preparation a motivated flyer can do between jump days.

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

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