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Head Up · Stability · The brief

Head-Up 101

Fly a stable sit

A stable, neutral sit you can hold, turn in, and take up to a stand.

What the course is about

You'll learn to hold a stable head-up position on heading, change fall rate, turn, and recover from instability. Head-up is the first vertical position to learn in freefly. This follows Freefly 100, because back-fly is the freefly recovery position. 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.

3.3
Maintain heading ±45° (guide) for 10 seconds in the neutral sit.

Can you hold a neutral sit on heading, within about a quadrant, for ten seconds?

3.7
Perform a 360° turn in each direction, stopping within ±45° of the reference heading. A sit turn may be initiated from the arms, from the legs, or from both together; demonstrate at least two of the three, state which was used, and note that combining the two is generally the fastest way to turn.

Can you turn 360 degrees in each direction and stop within about a quadrant of where you started?

3.6 Safety critical
Demonstrate the stand with a visual reference, in the tunnel, or in the sky with a coach or another jumper, returning to the neutral sit without corking. The reference matters: a stand can generate large horizontal movement, and a solo flyer has no way to detect the drift it creates.

Can you take the sit up to a stand and settle back down without corking, and do you only fly it where you have a visual reference such as a coach, another jumper or the tunnel?

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

3.6
Demonstrate the stand with a visual reference, in the tunnel, or in the sky with a coach or another jumper, returning to the neutral sit without corking. The reference matters: a stand can generate large horizontal movement, and a solo flyer has no way to detect the drift it creates.

Can you take the sit up to a stand and settle back down without corking, and do you only fly it where you have a visual reference such as a coach, another jumper or the tunnel?

Everything this course says about breakoff and deployment

1.4
State the altitude for ending head-up work (breakoff guide: 5,500 ft minimum for head-up jumps) and the planned deployment altitude.
2.2
Verify audible altimeter(s) set and functioning. Two functioning audibles should be regarded as mandatory best practice before any solo freefly: an audible is a hidden safety-critical device that can fail silently, and where a group's breakoff gives you altitude redundancy, a soloist has none.
4.1
Initiate breakoff at the briefed altitude (within −0/+300 ft), ending all head-up work.
4.2
End the jump per the briefed protocol. On a coached/group jump: transition to back-fly, check the airspace above and behind, back-track, then roll to belly and track 90° from jump run, slowing to belly-fall speeds. On a solo consolidation jump: end the 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 (FFP-F100 solo protocol). 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 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).
Video of every assessment jump, with the flyer identifiable: coach-flown, helmet-mounted or ground-to-air. Tunnel video covers tunnel work.
Equipment: a visual altimeter, a working audible (two when the assessment jump is flown solo), 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 head-up coaching. An IBA-rated or equivalent tunnel instructor can sign off tunnel work.
Each criterion is marked Satisfactory or Not Yet Satisfactory.
As a guide, it takes about eight head-up jumps, alternating coached and solo, over at least two days within six months.
Up to three practice jumps can be coached tunnel sessions of about 15 minutes, but the final two are sky jumps.
If you already fly a sit, your coach can assess you on one sky jump, using your tunnel records, logbook or video.

Performance evidence

After each jump, debrief the video with your coach and log the jump with any fault, its cause and one fix. You've finished Head-Up 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 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 jump, and end each debrief on something that went well, with one thing to improve.

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 Head-Up 101 course page carries the reasoning, the sources and everything left off here. All briefing cards.