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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 the course is about

You'll learn to find head-down off the exit, hold it on heading, and recover from instability. This follows Head-Up 102, because you need control of a sit first, and back-fly is the freefly recovery position.
In Australia, head-down training needs at least a Certificate B, with Stage 1 of the Freefly Training Table (head-up) complete.

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 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, keeping your heading and finishing in the same quadrant, with more pressure on your legs than your arms?

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

Can you go from your back to head down and be vertical again within about five seconds?

3.5 Safety critical
Fly all unaccompanied solo head-down work in a daffy with a continuous slow static turn, never a held heading, never a carve (FFP-F100 solo protocol).

On solo head-down flying, do you stay in a daffy and keep a slow continuous turn running, rather than holding a heading or carving?

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

3.5
Fly all unaccompanied solo head-down work in a daffy with a continuous slow static turn, never a held heading, never a carve (FFP-F100 solo protocol).

On solo head-down flying, do you stay in a daffy and keep a slow continuous turn running, rather than holding a heading or carving?

Everything this course 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.
4.3
Deploy at the planned altitude, at belly fall rate, after checking 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).
Video of every assessment jump, with the flyer identifiable: coach-flown, ground-to-air or tunnel video.
Equipment: a visual altimeter, two working audibles for jumps on the flyer's own (strongly recommended practice; one working audible is the Australian regulatory minimum on any freefly jump), an AAD (recommended), and freefly-suitable gear to the Freefly 100 gear check.
Conditions within the flyer's cleared limits.
Shoulder history declared before vertical work, so the exit, arm position and recovery can be adjusted, with medical clearance where appropriate. A shoulder that cannot reach the pilot chute is a deployment failure as well as a flying limit.
The assessor is a freefly coach current in head-down coaching. Each criterion is marked Satisfactory or Not Yet Satisfactory.
Tunnel work is assessed by a qualified head-down tunnel coach (IBA or an equivalent system). Teaching techniques vary between systems, and tunnel arm positions may need adapting for the sky.
Tunnel time can replace up to three of the skill-development jumps, and none of the assessment jumps.
Before the first sky daffy on the flyer's own: tunnel video of a stable head-down daffy with turns.
For a flyer who already flies head-down, the evidence is a logbook of head-down jumps on their own or coached 2-ways (dates, altitudes, coach signatures where applicable), tunnel records at IBA Static Level 4 head-down or equivalent, including flips from sit (check this against IBA material), and video of a stable neutral position on heading and a tunnel daffy with turns.
That flyer then flies one coach-observed challenge jump to the Freefly 100 protocol, assessed on video against every criterion. The bold criteria are not waived.
As a guide, it takes about eight solo head-down jumps, each briefed by your coach, over at least two days within six months.
Up to three practice jumps can be tunnel sessions, but the final two are sky jumps.
If you already fly head-down, your coach can assess you on one solo sky jump, with your logbook, tunnel records and video.

Performance evidence

After each jump, debrief the video with your coach and log one fault and its fix. You've finished Head-Down 101 when you fly two jumps 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 protocol for jumps on the flyer's own (daffy, continuous turn, two audibles) whatever the pressure for progress.
One objective per jump, which keeps the thinking load light and the jump enjoyable.
End each debrief on something that went well, with one thing to improve.
Coach stillness: notice before correcting, move gradually, and fly a range of the position.
Early sky attempts are flown on the flyer's own or with a qualified coach as reference, never with another unqualified flyer as the reference.
The turn works because it cancels a body-fixed drive. A drive can also become a little easier to notice during a turn, but that is a small bonus at slow turn rates.
A held heading, or facing 90° off jump run, only partly protects a flyer on their own.
The daffy has limits: it can be over-powerful at the edge of the envelope, and its front leg generates the turn (APF006 §7.5.3). Its value on a jump on your own is that its drive is commanded, its front leg backstops a forward runaway, and it gives one known position to self-check against.
Shelf and daffy uses beyond this course: the shelf keeps the legs out of a formation's burble (the VFS position), the daffy has the most leg power and frees the arms wide in a round (the big-way position), and many flyers approach a big-way in a shelf and change to a daffy on joining. The straddle gives fine speed control with little drag, suits light flyers in fast formations, and frees the arms wide without a forward drive.
Recommended tunnel preparation: neutral head-down off the net at moderate to fast wind speeds, fall rate up and down, turns each way, and sit to head-down flips, with bailing to back-fly as the standing recovery and the coach holding a grip in early drills.
Australian cases for the brief (teach the lesson, name no one): multiple vertebral fractures on a distracted jump on the flyer's own with no audible, a C2 fracture after an unstable sit-fly deployment, a shoulder dislocation that stopped the flyer reaching the pilot chute, and torn shoulder ligaments.
Optional conditioning between jump days, as isometric holds because a tunnel block runs up to about 2 minutes: wall-sits of up to 2 minutes pressing through the heels, single-leg balance for asymmetric docks, hamstring bridges for back-fly recovery, and toe dorsiflexion with hip-flexor work for the daffy and head-down.
Head-down speed is given as about 160 mph in USPA sources and 270–400+ km/h in the APF Freefly and Angles Guide. The figures come from different sources, and each stands on its own.

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

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