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HU102 Coach
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Head Up · Stability · The brief

Head-Up 102

Move and transition head-up

Going where you want head up, and getting back to the sit from anywhere.

What this unit covers

- Covers deliberate head-up movement and in-place head-up↔head-up transitions flown as a solo skill set: fore/aft drive flown by pushing the legs toward a stand with a break at the hips.
Side slides.
The rest of it
Level changes.
And cartwheel, back-flip and front-flip transitions finishing back in a sit on heading. The unit also covers self-diagnosis of drift when no coach's eye is present, the defining problem of solo head-up work, because a backsliding solo flyer silently covers ground toward adjacent groups (Austin). Applies to flyers who hold a stable neutral sit with heading control and a reliable recovery (HU 101). Solo sit exits (back to the relative wind; APF006 §6.3) and the head-up breakoff sequence (through the back to belly, slowing to belly speeds) consolidate skills introduced in HU 101 and Freefly 100 and are flown and assessed on every jump in this unit. Forward drive is taught by pushing the legs toward a stand, with the risk stated plainly: done well it can generate a large, fast forward drive, so the flyer flies each drive as a short briefed distance with gradual input and a drive check between manoeuvres. In practice most beginner head-up flyers backslide rather than over-drive. Environment: tunnel recommended for skill acquisition, because the wall reference makes drift visible; sky for validation, where no fixed reference exists, hence the drift-indicator drill. The drive mechanics taught here are deliberately sky-specific: the rig changes how a sit flies (see Knowledge evidence). Supervision: coach-briefed ground preparation with the coach passive in the air, fading to unsupported solo jumps. A flyer jumping truly solo follows the FFP-F100 solo protocols: working heading 90° to jump run, movement intent declared to the load, and two functioning audibles, which should be regarded as mandatory best practice before any solo freefly. An audible is a hidden safety-critical device that can fail silently; a group provides altitude-awareness redundancy, a soloist has none.

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
Drive forward a briefed distance (~5–10 m guide) by pushing the legs toward a stand and breaking forward at the hips, a larger hip break than the tunnel permits, stopping in the neutral sit on heading (±45° guide).

Can you drive forward about five to ten metres and stop in a neutral sit, still on heading?

3.5
Side-slide left and right a briefed distance, pushing down on the travel-side leg, dropping the same-side elbow and extending the opposite hand away to form a downward wing on the travel side with the upper legs and arms, stopping on heading after each slide.

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

3.12 Safety critical
Execute the vertical recovery position immediately on any loss of control, resuming work only when stable and back on the working heading.

If a transition or a drive goes wrong, do you go straight to the vertical recovery position and pick work up again only once you are stable and back on your working heading?

3.7
Perform a cartwheel transition (foot to opposite knee, tuck to a ball, force the legs down on return), re-establishing the sit on the original heading (±45° guide) within 3 seconds.

Can you cartwheel and re-establish the sit on your original heading within about three seconds?

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
Execute the vertical recovery position immediately on any loss of control, resuming work only when stable and back on the working heading.

If a transition or a drive goes wrong, do you go straight to the vertical recovery position and pick work up again only once you are stable and back on your working heading?

Everything this unit says about breakoff and deployment

1.3
State breakoff and deployment altitudes (guide: 5,500 ft minimum for head-up work, most modern jumpers use 5,500 ft for any freefly group and will generally not accept 4,500 ft).
2.2
Fit the pull-up-cord drift indicator (designated drift-diagnosis jumps only) by tying it to a shoelace, good practice, keeping it as far as possible from handles and deployment equipment and confirming it streams free of snag points. Any cord added to gear is a snag hazard, so check it cannot reach or foul anything.
4.1
Initiate breakoff at the briefed altitude (within −0/+300 ft).
4.3
Deploy at the planned altitude 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. Video of assessment jumps is required for a valid assessment (coach-flown, ground-to-air or tunnel video; helmet-mounted only where the candidate meets local camera rules; candidate identifiable).
Required equipment: visual altimeter, functioning audible (two audibles should be regarded as mandatory best practice for truly solo jumps), freefly-suitable gear, and the pull-up-cord drift indicator on the designated drift-diagnosis jumps. Conditions within the candidate's cleared limits.
Tunnel evidence is acceptable for the movement and transition criteria but not for the drift-management, altitude-discipline or breakoff criteria. Assessor: a freefly coach current in head-up coaching, using the published FFP-HU102 checklist (Satisfactory / Not Yet Satisfactory per criterion).

Performance evidence

Ability is typically evidenced across around 8 jumps and/or equivalent tunnel sessions. The number is a guide to how long the unit usually takes; competency, not jump counts, is the standard.
The tunnel is the recommended acquisition route for drives, slides and transitions and, as a guide, may substitute for up to half the skill-development evidence. The candidate flies the drift-management jumps in the sky, where no wall reference exists.
Evidence should span at least two different days/conditions, including two consecutive sky jumps meeting all criteria without coach assistance or prompts, with each of the three transitions (cartwheel, back flip, front flip) evidenced on at least two occasions, all within a recommended 6-month currency window.

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 safety criteria to the bold best-practice standard above, teaching them as risk education with the why stated.
Set one declared objective per jump (one movement skill or transition family) to keep the cognitive load light and the jump enjoyable. End debriefs on a win with one improvement focus for the next jump.

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 Head-Up 102 unit carries the reasoning, the sources and everything left off here. All briefing cards.