Angles 301 — Lead movement jumps

Application

Covers planning, briefing, leading and debriefing movement jumps (tracking and angle groups): the flight-path plan and the day’s picture, coordination with the rest of the load, the briefing and dirt dive, the exit, in-air leadership (the check cycle, smoothness, pitch and speed management, keeping the group together), breakoff design and execution, landing accountability, and the debrief.

Scope is first leads of 2–3-ways building toward groups of about six, the breakoff-geometry ceiling for intermediate groups; leading larger groups and organising multiple movement groups across a load is Angles 401 (FFP-AN401). Most of leading happens before boarding, experienced leaders put 50–80% of the job in the planning, navigation and briefing, so this unit assesses the whole cycle, not just the freefall.

Head-up movement is a distinct capability within this unit. It is a separate 300-level thread, head-up angle groups of 4 or fewer, more experienced participants than a belly angle group of the same size, led from the belly, with its own leader sequence and its own breakoff doctrine.

(This unit leads with “head-up angles” and “head-up movement”; “sit tracking” and “vertical tracking” are kept only as search synonyms so the term catches every query variant.) It is not a harder version of belly angle leading and it is not a group head-up formation (that is FFP-HU301).

Head-up movement is treated as advanced and higher-risk because even a small group scatters easily, so it is capped small and reserved for stronger flyers (the project’s coaching doctrine round-4 doctrine).

A candidate leads head-up movement only after they are competent leading belly movement groups; the head-up-movement criteria and knowledge below are assessed on their own, on head-up movement jumps, and are not required for a candidate whose leading is belly-angle-only. Big-way angles, single-leader groups over about ten, and mixed-orientation angles are Angles 401 (FFP-AN401), not this unit.

Two doctrine points frame the whole angles track and are restated here because this unit produces the people who carry them:

• Angles are led from the belly only, never from the back. The leader must see the ground, the references and the group.

  • Back-flying in an angle group is a follower skill flown in slot, not a leading position.
  • Even on dynamic jumps that transition through orientations, leadership is handed between belly flyers rather than ever sitting with a back-flyer (the project’s coaching doctrine.3 corroboration).
  • APF006 §5.12, “the lead flyer must always fly belly to earth”;, trainee leaders barred from leading on their back, presenter “100% agrees that in most cases you should lead on your belly”; the project’s coaching doctrine.

• Flyers learn angles with a trained leader, not by themselves. This curriculum does not encourage solo angle or movement jumps at any level.

  • Every unit below this one assumes a trained or approved leader on the jump.
  • Structured, led movement jumps are safer than unstructured beginner angle groups, “otherwise the alternative’s not that great either” (Spaceland and Skydive Arizona approved-leader models).
  • This unit is where those leaders are made, and made under supervision: leading is learned with an experienced leader planning, checking and flying alongside the candidate.
  • APF006 §8.7 Angles Level 2, “brief and lead a jump under supervision”; /B/C apprenticeship model.

Applies to flyers with endorsement-standard angle competence in both belly and back orientations and a substantial follower history, including time spent deliberately improving awareness on jumps they were not leading.

Environment: sky only; navigation, briefing and group management cannot be exercised in a tunnel (tunnel time remains useful for personal slot-skill maintenance).

Supervision fade: co-plan and co-brief with an experienced leader → brief and lead with the experienced leader in the group → lead with the experienced leader passive. Half of what this unit teaches is when not to lead, conditions, group, and honest self-assessment without ego (“the non-leading workshop”).

Pre-requisite units

FFP-F100, FFP-AN101, FFP-AN201, FFP-AN202 (with both belly and back orientations passed, the AN 202-style sign-off is orientation-specific).

Recommended entry posture: a broad follower history across patterns, slots and leaders, because “it’s easier to jump with a group where everybody knows what they’re doing, they can cover for your mistakes” and the inverse is what a new leader faces; new leaders should first lead experienced groups, never beginner groups. RPL route for experienced entrants: see the RPL evidence set below.

For the head-up movement thread specifically, add head-up competence: strong personal head-up flying and, strongly recommended, being crested head-up static (FFP-HU202-standard head-up group competence, with demonstrated head-up breakoff proficiency in larger formations).

Head-up static experience is not a bureaucratic tick: because head-up movement jumps are variable and some flyers on them are initially more vertical than moving, the head-up static skill set, including the head-up static breakoff, is exactly what a flyer falls back on when the moving jump does not go to plan, so the value is knowing when to call on those skills (the project’s coaching doctrine round-4 doctrine).

This crested-head-up-static-first prerequisite matches how the specialist camps actually gate head-up movement.

• Team Fly4Life’s Head Up Camp admits flyers only once they can control fall rate and hold proximity within about ten feet of the base in a static head-up group of around five, AND safely break off from a static head-up formation, a static-head-up-group competence plus a demonstrated static-head-up breakoff, exactly the two things this thread asks for.
• Before any head-up movement is attempted (Fly4Life, documented in head-up movement research).

Elements and performance criteria

1. Plan the jump

1.1

Build the day's picture from the pattern ingredients: winds in all three layers (freefall, canopy, landing, with units checked), jump run (direction, offset, zero point, green light, type), expected drift, other groups on the load, DZ rules and terrain, and the group itself, including yourself and your experience with today's specific conditions (APF006 §5.14).

1.2

Design a flight path that meets the two governing objectives, avoid every other group's line of flight, and bring the whole group back to the landing area, drawn on a DZ map with turns keyed to ground references, and an opening area planned for the whole group: the path ends in a cone of separating jumpers, not a point. Plan wind drift before intentional movement, total displacement is wind drift plus intentional movement. Work out the drift for the day's uppers and freefall time first, and visualise it on the DZ board, before adding any planned movement footprint: drift acts on every group whether it moves or not, and differs by discipline (a belly group drifts more than an angle group, which drifts more than a faster freefly group), so a lane drawn without the drift underneath it is drawn in the wrong place (USPA SIM 5-10.F; APF006 §3.2; the project's coaching doctrine movement-jump planning doctrine).

1.3

Choose the simplest pattern that does the job, sized to the least experienced flyer and to your own leading experience, straight 90 and 45-45 are the developing leader's patterns; complex patterns trade accuracy for manoeuvrability and are "really easy on paper but not so easy to fly" (Folgerts, one turn is better and safer).

1.4

Screen every participant, including any camera flyer, by evidence, not self-report: proximity footage or a docked-on-your-leader history, a demonstrated body position, a hand-demonstration of levels; treat unproven flyers as lower-skilled until seen ("you don't know what you don't know", self-reported speed and "biggest jump" are worthless screens) (an unbriefed camera flyer is a participant too).

1.5

Design the breakoff on the ground, never in the air: breakoff altitude (guides, 5,000 ft up to a 4-way, 5,500 ft for 5 or more; most modern groups brief 5,500 ft regardless of size; for a head-up angle group raise the floor, minimum 6,000 ft, and 6,500 ft for a larger group, the recommended FFP standard for head-up angle work, because a head-up breakoff buys almost no separation and rotating to head-first costs altitude; see the head-up-angle breakoff item in Knowledge evidence), the last turn no lower than ~7,000 ft so the group settles onto one heading before separating ("we definitely don't want to break off in a turn, that's where the collisions happen"), a peel-off fan away from jump run with no flyer turning more than ~90° and nobody, ever, turning 180° back toward the jump run, an explicit breakoff assignment for anyone slotted above the leader, and separation complete at least 1,000 ft above the highest planned deployment. Breakoff is the trigger point for movement-jump collisions; it is designed, briefed and walked, not improvised (the project's coaching doctrine breakoff standards;, the Australian "to the basement" incidents; APF006 §5.10;.

1.6

Prepare a conditional plan B that is simpler than plan A and changes only what must change (same exit, same slots, same breakoff where possible), plus the left-behind and lost-flyer protocol, the unexpected is the one thing a leader can expect ("you have to change what you have to change, but don't change what you don't have to change";, pre-briefed conditional plans; APF006 §4.3).

1.7

Choose the group's slot in the exit order as a navigation tool, wind cone, offset side, pattern shape, other groups, rather than by habit (movement groups do not have to exit first), and check whether the plan survives a changed jump run. Draw each lane parallel to jump run with a clear intent arrow, and where two movement groups share the load, plan different airspace, by default opposite directions. Worked example of the strong-upper-wind variant: when the upper wind is strong enough that both groups must fly the same way (toward the landward side), split the airspace into sectors instead, one group to one side of the run, the other to the other, with an explicit separation buffer of at least one board-grid square between them, so two same-direction lanes never converge (Burke, an angle group must not claim a tracking group's exit priority; USPA SIM 5-10.E; the project's coaching doctrine movement-jump planning doctrine).

2. Prepare

2.1

Declare the movement jump to manifest and the pilot, and coordinate patterns with every other movement group on the load before boarding, draw the pattern where the next group can see it (map or flight-planning board), agree lanes or walls, and count novice solo freeflyers as a moving group that owns the corridor perpendicular to jump run, both sides. Best practice on the DZ board is to draw the group's planned flight path first, before the detail: a lane and intent arrow already on the board while everyone is dirt-diving lets the other groups and the load master read each movement group's intentions at a glance, which is what removes the last-minute coordination scramble; confirm the exit order and aircraft plan with the load master as part of this (Spaceland flight-board practice; USPA SIM 5-10.E; the project's coaching doctrine movement-jump planning doctrine).

2.2

Deliver the briefing early (the 20-minute call, rehearsed at the 10, a rushed brief produces rushed jumpers), structured dry-data-first: jump run, the three wind layers chewed into digestible form, the drawn plan, exit order; then approach doctrine (quadrant → level → close), heading discipline, the left-behind protocol, the breakoff walk-through, and after-opening instructions, all phrased as what TO do, never only what not to do. As the FFP briefing minimum, the brief must define six planning outputs for the jump: direction (lane or sector), distance (in grid squares or nautical miles), the breakoff and separation plan, the opening area, the initial canopy direction, and plan B, a movement jump is not briefed until all six are stated (APF006 §5.14; the project's coaching doctrine movement-jump planning doctrine).

2.3

Walk the dive with the group, walking backwards where it simulates real body inputs, and spend more time on the getting-together and breakoff phases than on the rest of the walk combined.

2.4

Confirm before boarding that every participant can point out the jump-run direction and the briefed ground references, and that gear is checked: audible heard functioning and set to the briefed profile, visual altimeter, movement-suitable equipment (APF006 §5.14, §3.1; the project's coaching doctrine audible check protocol;, dirt-dive your audible settings).

2.5

Hold the plan under pressure: no late add-ons, no extra moves, no unvetted joiners at the mock-up, "learning how to say no, and then how to say no, is probably one of the most challenging things", while staying open to a genuinely better point; if the plan must change, change the minimum and always change to the simpler option.

2.6

Brief the high-and-behind case as a mandatory item: a jumper who ends up high and behind the group must never chase it. Brief the mindset plainly, the jump is done; accept it, do not try to catch back up (chasing compresses vertical separation and raises closing speed at breakoff). Instead slow the fall rate, stay high and behind, keep visual contact with the group, and deploy at the briefed altitude when the group breaks off (the project's coaching doctrine movement-jump contingency doctrine;, break off at the group's timing, not its altitude; APF006 §3.3).

2.7

Assemble and board the group as a leader: gather the group by the aircraft in reverse exit order before boarding, and visualise the climb-out, the exit and the initial navigation before the door. Assess the actual conditions (cloud, visibility, aircraft position) and be ready to call plan B before the door opens, and do not open the door yourself; door timing belongs to the aircraft crew (the project's coaching doctrine movement-jump contingency doctrine; APF006 §5.14, §3.1).

3. Perform — lead in the air

3.1

Exit without turning hard off the door: stay with the aircraft's line for a few seconds (referencing the plane, not the back-flyers), count, then start the first turn gradually.

3.2

Lead belly-to-earth for the entire jump, angle jumps are never led from the back. The leader is the only person navigating: they must hold continuous visual on the ground, the references, the group and the other groups, and none of that is reliably possible on your back (APF006 §5.12; the project's coaching doctrine; British Skydiving TPM §3.7 and Skydive Arizona treat any back-flying by a leader as requiring a dedicated belly mirror, an advanced arrangement outside this unit's scope).

3.3

Run the check cycle continuously through the working time: how is my heading → how is the group → how am I → repeat, with direction always first, no playing to the camera, no coaching mid-jump at the cost of navigation. Order the whole jump by the in-air priority order Aviate → Navigate → Communicate: aviate first, fly yourself, hold personal stability, heading and fall rate, and stabilise before re-engaging if task-saturated; navigate second, protect the airspace and the footprint, watching drift, lane and range, and reduce or stop horizontal movement rather than press on when position is uncertain; communicate third, signal the group to hold cohesion and the plan. When tasks conflict the higher priority always wins; navigation and stability come before helping any individual flyer (the project's coaching doctrine movement-jump priority-order doctrine; APF006 §5.14).

3.4

Fly for the group: a neutral position with a little speed, no heavy brakes ("no slow go": speed equals lift, and a braked leader makes the jump hardest for the back-flyers), managing the line and the speed-on-the-line as separate levers, flying turns as smooth curves timed to arrive at the planned place at the planned time, and holding the briefed heading between turns (within about ±45° as a plain guide, precision comes from turning at the right place at the right time, not from chasing a compass) (smoothness is the core skill).

3.5

Stay predictable when someone struggles: hold the plan and the line. Never dive, flatten sharply or turn the group back to "pick up" a dropped flyer, changing the closing speed on someone already struggling is a documented collision cause, and never chase a flyer who leaves the plan: the group follows the leader, so a chasing leader drags everyone into the hazard. Adjust only gradually, one small iteration at a time (the "accommodation" collision, the chase ruling;, "the tighter we are, the safer we are").

3.6

Keep the group's path moving away from jump run at all times, never turn the group back toward the line of flight, and never rely on vertical separation from other groups: the airspace on and behind jump run belongs to everyone else on the load (APF006 §3.3;, the Sebastian jump-run crossing).

3.7

Start the last turn no lower than the briefed altitude (~7,000–7,500 ft guide), then fly straight and settle the group onto one heading before breakoff, the formation "breathes" in turns, and people separating with residual turning motion is where collisions happen.

3.8

(Head-up movement only.) Lead a head-up movement group of 4 or fewer from the belly, running the gather-then-navigate sequence:

• Exit the plane, then turn 90° off jump run.
• Assume the knee-fly position and fly mostly vertical while the group builds, this takes time, because flyers need to come on level and in slot. Do not drive off before the group is together.
• Understand what the head-up “movement on belly” position actually is. A head-up movement leader is not head-up; they fly a belly-to-wind head-up-family position, and knee-fly is the gateway into it. In knee-fly the relative wind meets the belly and front torso at a shallow angle of incidence, which creates rearwards drive, the leader drives backwards while the group back-flies toward them.

A competent flyer can fly knee-fly across a wide fall-rate band, from near belly speeds up to near head-down speeds, so the same position can be progressively turned into a genuine head-up movement jump “on belly.”

• Elongate progressively to add drive and speed. To speed the position up: extend the arms, keep the chin up, and move the legs rearward.

Fall-rate is controlled by leg width and foot turn-out, to fall slower, separate the knees and turn the feet out so the sides of the feet catch the wind; to fall much faster, bring the knees and feet together so the tops of the shoes meet the wind, which also builds fast rearwards drive because the hip angle changes relative to the torso.

• Teach in knee-fly, not at full extension. The fastest, most advanced version of this position is legs fully extended, with fall-rate held by widening the legs and “pulling down” on the wind with the arms, and speed added by bringing the legs together, elongating the body and pushing on the wind with the hands above the head.

It gives the fastest horizontal movement but is dynamically unstable: its failure mode is a sudden collapse to a belly-down attitude at full lift, which rapidly decelerates the flyer so they disappear above the group. That is exactly the wrong place to be, above and behind the people you are leading.

Knee-fly is the teaching position precisely because it is easier to hold stable and the elongation can be learned one step at a time; full extension is a mastery position, not a leading-course entry point (the project’s coaching doctrine round-4b).

• Keep checking heading, navigating off major horizon features, the ocean, early or afternoon sun, a mountain range. The knee-fly / more-vertical start naturally puts the leader’s eyes on the horizon rather than the ground below, so distant features are the working reference, not the ground detail a flatter leader would use.
• As the group builds, initiate backwards drive and encourage the participants to follow, a configuration of 2 in front head-up back-flying toward the leader, or 1 in front and 1 to the side of the leader.
• Keep the group small and the participants strong: it is very easy for even a small head-up group to become scattered, one of two flyers ending up behind, above or below the leader, which is why numbers stay at 4 or fewer and participants are more experienced than a belly group of the same size (the project’s coaching doctrine round-4 doctrine).

4. Complete — breakoff to landing

4.1

Initiate breakoff at the briefed altitude (within −0/+300 ft) with the briefed signal, and continue straight, fast and efficient, never turning in place and never stopping or flaring to watch: the leader's unbroken line is the reference every other flyer fans off ("if they don't have a reference point, they're just floating in the sky"), and a stopped leader is a standing target for the one flyer they didn't see (APF006 §5.10).

4.2

Flatten progressively toward deployment, converting the jump's speed into horizontal separation, no snap-flat, no barrel rolls to "clear airspace" (look under arms/legs, or use a clean, trained back transition that holds heading, speed and pitch) (APF006 §3.3, barrel roll before opening only if smooth and reliable).

4.3

Deploy at the planned altitude over the planned area after visually clearing the airspace, always assuming somebody is there, and never "pull to clear airspace": deploying dumps fabric into the airspace, it does not clear it (APF006 §3.3).

4.4

Under canopy, hold position and do not fly back toward the jump run until the other groups' canopies are seen open; keep heading discipline immediately after opening and join the pattern with minimal disruption (the post-opening wrap; APF006 §3.3).

4.5

Confirm every group member is back on the ground before standing down, and activate the off-landing plan if anyone is unaccounted for, the leader's job is to bring everybody safely to the ground, and it does not end at their own landing.

4.6

(Head-up movement only.) Brief and fly the head-up-movement breakoff as a plan PLUS talked-through what-ifs, the plan alone is not enough, because head-up movement jumps routinely produce off-plan states (the project's coaching doctrine round-4 doctrine).

• The core principle: get into a head-down position first, then move. A head-up breakoff buys almost no separation because a head-up flyer cannot accelerate horizontally, Carlton’s GPS data shows no significant glide-ratio gain moving into a head-up breakoff.

So the whole family of head-up-movement breakoffs (the bottom loop, the back layout, the cartwheel, and the head-up static breakoff) works the same way: adopt a head-down (head-first) attitude, THEN track. FFP does not teach a “turn 180 and track away on your back” head-up breakoff: a head-up formation whose flyers each spun 180° and back-tracked would back-track straight into each other.

Head-down-position-first-then-move is the doctrine (the project’s coaching doctrine round-4b; Carlton).

• Textbook route (a “team layout”): each head-up back-flyer does a bottom loop, or a tight back layout, to a belly angle. This is Carlton’s “team layout” family, the team converts to head-first around a centre point while staying on the line of flight, chosen so the flyer can scan airspace above and below, then keep forward momentum into the belly angle. Keep the momentum; do not stall out at the transition.

Never just flip in place: Carlton names the “in-place layout” as the worst transitional option to head-first, because it loses the line and the transition lag bites hardest.

• Raise the floor to a minimum of 6,000 ft for head-up movement jumps, and initiate the head-down transition high. Head-up breakoff is markedly inefficient, flyers feel Carlton’s inefficiency directly as a sudden, unexpected loss of altitude at breakoff and as how much closer everyone suddenly is.

Because converting head-up to head-first does not accelerate a flyer immediately (Carlton measured a 1,500–2,000 ft lag before horizontal speed builds), the transition must be initiated early: be head-first by about 6,500–7,000 ft so the head-first track has spent its lag and is actually producing separation by the time the breakoff floor arrives.

The coach briefs and experiences this, then sets the breakoff higher (the project’s coaching doctrine round-4 doctrine; Carlton; consistent with the FFP head-up breakoff standards, HU301 5,500 ft minimum / 6,000 ft for 6-way-plus).

• Keep the group inside the safe head-up-breakoff band. Carlton’s verified figures make the case for capping head-up-movement groups small: on a slow head-up breakoff six jumpers each taking a 30° heading change get only about 268 ft of separation (roughly 1.4 s of reaction time), and on a fast one about 392 ft (roughly 2.7 s), against 690–1,165 ft for a head-down breakoff.

On those numbers Carlton calls a head-up breakoff in six or more “unacceptable” and even five “pushing it,” which is exactly why this thread caps head-up movement at 4 or fewer (Carlton).

• The ~100-m-behind what-if: if a back-flyer ends up about 100 m behind the group, which happens on many head-up movement jumps, the textbook route no longer makes sense. It makes more sense to take a belly angle back the way they came, away from the group, to increase separation.

The flyer is probably barely moving laterally and mostly vertical, so the sequence becomes the head-up static breakoff pattern: rock to back-fly to scan above, then take a back angle (already head-down-oriented) away from the group, rotate to belly, scan the ground, and deploy. Note this is a head-down-position-first move too, the flyer is on a back angle, not spinning 180° to back-track.

• The cartwheel variation: a cartwheel from head-up to belly angle keeps constant visual with the group, maintains momentum, and gives a more efficient flight path, while acknowledging it will never be as efficient as a head-down angle.

5. Review

5.1

Debrief the group: participants speak first; watch the whole video once through without stopping; safety points first, then positives, then improvements, teaching by showing the good example in the group rather than dwelling on the individual who missed.

5.2

Compare planned versus flown: draw what you think you flew, and, if you have access to a GPS, compare all three pictures (the plan, your perception, the trace), remembering the trace includes drift.

5.3

Log the jump; report any near-miss, off-landing, airspace conflict or plan deviation to DZ safety staff; and bank what the day taught, flags you missed, conditions you now have experience with, into the next plan.

Bold criteria are safety-critical: non-compensable (any Not Yet Satisfactory on a bold criterion = unit Not Yet Competent, regardless of flying or briefing quality).

Foundation skills

• Briefing and debriefing communication (clear, concise, positive-phrased, scaled to the group).
• Saying no, and how to say no, under social pressure.
• Negotiation with manifest, pilots, loadmasters and other group leaders (precision language: “0.5 before” what?).
• Numeracy, winds-aloft interpretation, unit conversion (knots/mph/m/s), drift arithmetic, altitude and “rope” budgeting.
• Map reading and spatial planning at two reference scales (detail within ~1–2 miles, far references for orientation).
• Honest self-assessment without ego, knowing which conditions you have experience with, and standing down when the flags stack.

Performance evidence (suggested sufficiency — a guide to how long it might take; adjust locally)

Ability evidenced across at least 8 movement jumps in the leader role, following the supervision fade: the first jumps planned and briefed jointly with an experienced leader, then briefing and leading with the experienced leader flying in the group, then leading with the experienced leader passive.

• Progression within the series: start with 2–3-ways on flat, simple patterns (straight 90, 45-45) and lead flatter dives until turn timing is consistent before changing angles (changing the angle changes all your timings).
• Build toward groups of about six.
• Include at least 2 jumps with back-flyers in the group.
• Across at least two different days with different winds-aloft pictures.
• including at least 2 consecutive complete lead cycles (plan → brief → lead → breakoff → landing accountability → debrief) meeting all criteria without assistance from the supervising leader.
• Within a recommended 6-month currency window.

Ground evidence alongside the jumps: flight plans drawn and defended for varied scenarios, real wind reports, different jump-run types, multiple groups on the load, assessed on the reasoning, not the drawing (“it’s more about being able to defend your jump run than drawing the perfect jump run”,). This is a bad-weather-day drill that costs nothing.

Tunnel time cannot substitute for any of this unit’s evidence, navigation, briefing and group management are sky-only skills.

Entry context, not a gate: published follower-history benchmarks for leaders range from 300 tracking/angles jumps, through 500 jumps including 25 tracking dives as a follower (Skydive Arizona), to 750 jumps plus a formal approval process (Skydive Spaceland).

Treat all of these as context, this curriculum’s standard is demonstrated competence across the cycle, not a jump count (APF006 Part 8), and readiness is condition-specific: “we should have the skill that allows us to bring us back to the drop zone, and if we don’t, we shouldn’t be leading those jumps yet, either because we’re not ready to lead at all, or because we’re not ready to lead in the conditions we have that day”.

Knowledge evidence

• The leader’s umbrella responsibility and the flags framework. State the job in one line, bring everybody safely to the ground, preferably to the landing area, and explain how incidents come from an accumulation of small factors rather than one big one.
  • Name the common flags and how a leader simplifies or stands down as they stack, “there is no flag that’s too small, because it’s the small ones that are going to get you”.
  • Strong or changing winds, curved or crosswind jump runs, multiple movement groups, big belly groups on windy days, group size vs skill, your own condition-specific inexperience.
• The pattern ingredients. Interpret a winds-aloft report into a plan.
  • Explain jump-run anatomy, direction, offset, zero point, green light, and the reporting conventions that trap visitors.
  • Explain drift mechanics, belly groups drift more because they are in freefall longer, not because of orientation, and the exit-order logic that follows (APF006 §3.2).
  • Direction reported as coming-from.
  • Units checked.
  • Two reports cross-checked on marginal days.
  • Pilot, tandems and previous loads as live calibration.
  • Some DZs report the aircraft heading, others the drop line over the ground, which matters on crosswind runs like Moruya’s.
  • Big before small; on windy days let the belly groups out first, “if there’s a doubt, there’s no doubt”; a movement group can sit anywhere in the order that suits its pattern.
• The rope model. Explain how steepness and speed set the path length available (steep/slow = less rope, flat/fast = more), how group size and the lowest skill level dictate the rope you get and the pattern complexity you may fly (more people → simplify: fewer turns, slightly flatter with speed, never flat-and-slow), and how winds and jump run dictate where that rope is laid on the terrain.
• The pattern taxonomy, graded. Describe the advantages, disadvantages and use-cases of the straight 90, 45-45 and 45-90.
  • State the universal rules: finish perpendicular to or away from jump run, never plan a final leg pointing back at it, last turn started by ~7,000–7,500 ft, and any jump-run crossing complete by ~10,000 ft ( §12; §2).
  • And, at awareness level, the zigzag, back-trail and 270 as advanced-leader patterns, “people start leading the 270 way before they should”.
• Multiple groups on the load. Explain lane coordination: opposite sides first.
  • Quadrants and interleaved exits when a side must be shared.
  • Wide “walls”/no-man’s-land buffers.
  • Declared opening points over named landmarks.
  • Roughly two movement groups per load as the working guide.
  • A separation margin of at least twice the straight-down distance when flying parallel to another group’s airspace.
  • And why novice solo freeflyers are counted as a moving group that doesn’t know it’s moving, with the “responsible adult on the load” answer of teaching, not mocking.
  • §3; USPA SIM 4-7.D; the project’s coaching doctrine, no-solo-angles doctrine: the corridor problem is exactly why learners belong with trained leaders.
• Planning and briefing a movement jump, the project’s doctrine. State the wind-drift-first rule: total displacement is wind drift plus intentional movement, so drift is worked out and visualised on the DZ board before any movement footprint is added, and it differs by discipline (belly drifts more than an angle group, which drifts more than a faster freefly group).
  • Explain the lane and sector conventions: lanes drawn parallel to jump run with a clear intent arrow.
  • Two movement groups planning different airspace, opposite directions by default.
  • And the strong-upper-wind variant, where both groups fly the same way and the airspace is split into sectors with an explicit separation buffer instead.
  • State the DZ-board best practice, draw the flight path first, so the other groups and the load master can read each group’s intent during the dirt dives, and the six mandatory planning outputs that are the FFP briefing minimum: direction, distance, breakoff and separation plan, opening area, initial canopy direction, and plan B.
  • State plan B as a straight-down profile.
  • Explain the leader’s aircraft and exit discipline: assemble the group in reverse exit order before boarding, visualise the climb-out, exit and initial navigation before the door, keep the plan-B call available until the moment the door opens, and never open the door, that timing belongs to the aircraft crew.
  • No intentional horizontal movement, hold the group’s competent orientation, standard breakoff and deployment altitudes.
  • The project’s coaching doctrine movement-jump planning doctrine.
  • The project’s coaching doctrine movement-jump contingency doctrine.
  • APF006 §3.2, §5.14.
  • USPA SIM 5-10.E.
• The high-and-behind case, and the in-air priority order. Explain the mandatory high-and-behind brief for the jumper who ends up above and behind the group: never chase, the jump is done, because chasing compresses vertical separation and raises closing speed at breakoff.
  • Instead slow the fall rate, stay high and behind, hold visual contact, and deploy at the briefed altitude when the group breaks off.
  • State the in-air priority order that governs the whole jump, Aviate → Navigate → Communicate, and what each tier means: aviate is flying yourself first.
  • Navigate is protecting the airspace and footprint.
  • Communicate is supporting the plan and group (clear signals for cohesion, heading changes and aborts).
  • Explain that when tasks conflict the higher tier always wins, so navigation and stability come before assisting any individual flyer, the same rule criterion 3.5 applies to the chase.
  • Personal stability, heading and fall rate; stabilise before re-engaging when task-saturated.
  • Drift, lane and range awareness; reduce or stop horizontal movement when position is uncertain.
  • The project’s coaching doctrine movement-jump priority-order doctrine; the project’s coaching doctrine movement-jump contingency doctrine; APF006 §5.14, §3.3.
• Breakoff design and its geometry. State the breakoff-altitude guides and the peel-off fan rules.
  • Explain the intermediate-group ceiling of about six from the breakoff math (~30° of fan per flyer against a 5–7-second reaction window).
  • Explain “we break off at the group’s timing, not the group’s altitude” for a flyer left high and behind.
  • Explain the god-slot hazard, anyone above the leader gets an explicit breakoff assignment, because the Australian incident record (including at Moruya) shows what happens when they chase the leader’s line “to the basement”.
  • And explain deployment discipline, the airspace is cleared visually before deploying, always assuming somebody is there, because “pulling to clear airspace” is rejected doctrine: deploying dumps fabric into the airspace, it does not clear it (the project’s coaching doctrine breakoff standards; APF006 §5.10, §3.3).
  • 5,000 ft up to a 4-way.
  • 5,500 ft for 5-way and above.
  • Most modern jumpers brief 5,500 ft regardless, and, for a head-up angle group, the raised FFP floor of a minimum 6,000 ft, 6,500 ft for a larger group, per the head-up-angle breakoff item below.
  • Leader straight and fast.
  • Fan ≤90° away from jump run.
  • Look before turning.
  • Turn flat from the hips.
  • Nobody ever turns 180° toward the jump run.
• Breakoff orientation as briefing knowledge. Apply the Carlton GPS evidence when briefing groups of six or more: head-up cruises ≈140 mph vertical / 40 mph horizontal against head-down ≈135/90 (slow) to ≈120/105 (fast).
  • Modelled 6-way separations of 268 ft (≈1.4 s) on a slow head-up breakoff and 392 ft (≈2.7 s) on a fast one, versus 690–1,165 ft head-first.
  • No glide-ratio gain moving into a head-up breakoff.
  • And a measured 1,500–2,000 ft lag before horizontal speed builds after transitioning, hence the head-first transition must be initiated by ~6,500–7,000 ft, using a “team layout” (front/back layouts around a centre point that stay on the line of flight) rather than the “in-place layout” Carlton names as the worst option.
  • On these figures Carlton calls a head-up breakoff in six or more “unacceptable” and even five “pushing it” (Carlton; §5).
• Head-up angle breakoff, the recommended FFP standard (supersedes the general freefly ladder for head-up angle groups). For head-up angle groups the recommended breakoff floor is raised above the general freefly numbers because a head-up breakoff buys almost no separation and rotating to head-first costs altitude: minimum 6,000 ft breakoff for a head-up angle group, and 6,500 ft for a larger group.
  • This is consistent with, and sets the applied floor for, Carlton’s recommendation to be head-first by ~6,500–7,000 ft in groups of six or more: brief a head-up angle group to break off by 6,000 ft (6,500 ft for larger groups) so that the flyer is already head-first and tracking, not still head-up, through Carlton’s window.
  • The general freefly ladder (5,000 ft up to a 4-way, 5,500 ft for 5-way and larger) still applies to non-angle contexts and to belly-lead angle groups.
  • The raised 6,000/6,500 ft floor applies specifically to head-up angle work.
  • This corroborates and post-dates an earlier Australian norm: by 2015 the period practice was already to raise the head-up-angle track-off to 5,500 ft-plus in groups and to turn and clear airspace in the head-up orientation first before transitioning to a normal track (ASM 78 pp.11–12; ASM 80 p.54), the same mechanism (use the head-up orientation to clear before going head-first), which the current 6,000/6,500 ft standard extends.
• Head-up movement, the leader’s craft (a distinct 300-level capability). Explain that head-up movement is head-up angle groups of 4 or fewer, led from the belly, and why it is capped small and reserved for more experienced participants: even a small head-up group scatters easily, one of two flyers ends up behind.
• Above or below the leader, so numbers stay small and participants must be stronger than for a belly group of the same size.
  • Explain the position doctrine: the head-up movement leader is not head-up but flies a belly-to-wind head-up-family position, with knee-fly as the gateway, the wind meets the belly and front torso at a shallow angle of incidence, creating rearwards drive, and a competent flyer can fly knee-fly from near belly speeds to near head-down speeds.
  • Progressively turning it into a head-up movement jump “on belly.” Explain the progressive elongation ladder (extend the arms, chin up, legs rearward to speed up) and the fall-rate mechanics.
  • Explain why knee-fly is the teaching position and why full extension is a mastery position, not a starting point: at full extension the position is the fastest but dynamically unstable, and its failure mode is a sudden collapse to belly-down at full lift that decelerates the flyer so they disappear above the group.
  • Describe the gather-then-navigate leader sequence: exit, turn 90° off jump run, assume the knee-fly position and fly mostly vertical while the group builds (this takes time, flyers must come on level and in slot), keep checking heading off major horizon features (ocean, early/afternoon sun, mountain range) because the more-vertical knee-fly start naturally puts the leader’s eyes on the horizon rather than the ground below.
  • Then initiate backwards drive as the group builds, with configurations of 2 in front head-up back-flying toward the leader, or 1 in front and 1 to the side.
  • State the leader’s role in one line: gather the group and navigate.
  • Knees apart and feet turned out for slow, so the sides of the feet catch the wind; knees and feet together for fast, so the tops of the shoes catch it and the changed hip angle adds drive.
  • The project’s coaching doctrine round-4 doctrine; the project’s coaching doctrine round-4b knee-fly position doctrine.
• Head-up movement, breakoff doctrine and what-ifs. Explain why a head-up-movement breakoff is a plan PLUS talked-through what-ifs, not a plan alone, because these jumps routinely go off-plan.
  • State the core principle, get into a head-down (head-first) position first, THEN move, and why FFP rejects a “turn 180 and back-track on your back” head-up breakoff: a head-up formation whose flyers each spun 180° and back-tracked would back-track into each other.
  • Explain the textbook route as Carlton’s “team layout” family, and Carlton’s named anti-pattern, the “in-place layout”.
  • State the verified separation figures behind the small-group cap: a slow head-up breakoff gives about 268 ft (≈1.4 s) between six adjacent jumpers and a fast one about 392 ft (≈2.7 s), versus 690–1,165 ft for a head-down breakoff, so Carlton calls six-plus “unacceptable” and five “pushing it.” State the raised floor and the transition-initiation rule.
  • Explain the ~100-m-behind what-if, which happens on many head-up movement jumps: the textbook route no longer makes sense, so the flyer takes a belly angle back the way they came to increase separation, and, being mostly vertical and barely moving laterally, runs the head-up static breakoff pattern.
  • Explain the cartwheel variation.
  • Explain why head-up static experience really helps: the variability, and the fact that some flyers on head-up movement jumps are initially more vertical than moving, mean the head-up static skill set is the fallback, so being crested head-up static, having demonstrated head-up breakoff proficiency in larger formations, and knowing when to call on those skills is what carries a flyer through an off-plan jump.
  • Each head-up back-flyer does a bottom loop or a tight back layout to a belly angle, the team converting to head-first around a centre point while staying on the line of flight, chosen to scan above and below then keep forward momentum.
  • The worst transitional option, because it loses the line and the acceleration lag bites hardest.
  • Minimum 6,000 ft for head-up movement jumps, because flyers feel Carlton’s head-up inefficiency directly, the sudden unexpected altitude loss at breakoff and how much closer everyone suddenly is.
  • Convert to head-first early, be head-first by about 6,500–7,000 ft, because Carlton measured a 1,500–2,000 ft lag before horizontal speed builds, so a late conversion produces no separation in time.
  • Rock to back-fly to scan above, then a back angle away from the group already head-down-oriented, rotate to belly, scan the ground, deploy, a head-down-position-first move, not a 180 back-track.
  • Head-up to belly angle, constant visual with the group, maintains momentum, more efficient flight path, though never as efficient as head-down.
  • The project’s coaching doctrine round-4 doctrine; the project’s coaching doctrine round-4b; Carlton.
• Why angles are led from the belly only. Explain the navigation case (ground references, group visuals, other-group awareness are all belly-side), the follower-safety case (a back-flying “leader” cannot see the line they are setting), and the corroborating models, trainee-leader belly rules, the mirror-flyer requirement anywhere back-flying leaders are tolerated at all, and the two-leader belly-handover doctrine on dynamic jumps.
• Where leadership always sits with a belly flyer even as the formation transitions.
  • APF006 §5.12.
  • §8.
  • The project’s coaching doctrine.
  • British Skydiving TPM §3.7.
  • Skydive Arizona policy.
• When not to lead. Explain outs-are-plan-B.
  • The plan-B design rules, briefed on the ground as a pre-briefed conditional, changing only what must change and always to the simpler option, plus the left-behind and lost-flyer protocols.
  • The boogie hazard.
  • And the readiness self-check for both leader and group, including how to help an unready group self-assess without condescension.
  • If you can’t reliably bring this group home in today’s conditions, you shouldn’t be leading in those conditions yet.
  • Ad-hoc groups, social escalation, “step it up” pressure, start leading in structured environments.
• Incident lessons, from the leader’s perspective. Analyse the corpus cases and their doctrine: the Sebastian jump-run crossing (never count on vertical separation; beginner leaders get simple patterns), the “accommodation” collision (predictability beats helping), the chase ruling (the group follows the leader), the to-the-basement breakoffs (god slot; bloated briefings crowding out what matters).
• And the post-opening wrap (heading discipline survives past deployment) ( §10).
  • Historical case evidence for the coached-context/leader-required doctrine (Australian, 2011–14 era): hard openings from insufficient speed reduction after an atmo jump (ASM 56 p.74).
  • Target-fixation and height loss at atmo breakoff (ASM 65 pp.55–56).
  • The drop-zone-safety-officer warning against those who “show up with no plan and put up a big Angle dive” (ASM 73 p.29).
  • And, conceptually only, Burke’s “The Horizontal Flight Problem” framing of uncoached, low-jump-number angle flying with cameras as the next safety frontier (use the framing, not his unverified numbers) (ASM 70 p.29; ASM 71 pp.25–26).
  • These period cases show the failure modes a briefed plan and a trained leader exist to prevent.
• Feedback and self-development. Explain why leading accuracy cannot be self-assessed from feel, no trail in the sky, references shrink and grow with altitude, and how the three-picture debrief (plan → perceived → flown) closes the loop.
  • If you have access to a GPS or flight computer, use it: it is the most direct feedback a developing leader can get, and it shortens the learning loop dramatically (a coach plus a trace means fewer repetitions to the same result).
  • GPS speed/glide data is optional information, not a gate (USPA SIM 5-10.C lists GPS as a recommended accessory).

Assessment conditions

Sky only, leading, navigation and briefing cannot be assessed in a tunnel. Sky jumps from a recommended 10,000 ft minimum; a real group of at least 3 flyers of appropriate experience (3–6-way suggested for assessment jumps), with the assessor or supervising leader flying in the group.

The assessor observes the complete cycle: the day’s picture and drawn plan, the coordination with manifest/pilot/other groups, the briefing and walk-through, the jump, landing accountability, and the debrief.

Head-up movement (criteria 3.8 and 4.6) is assessed only when the candidate is seeking the head-up-movement capability; a belly-angle-only leader is assessed on the rest of the unit without it. When it is assessed: a head-up movement jump, group of 4 or fewer, with head-up-experienced participants, a briefed 6,000 ft minimum breakoff, and assessor and participants current in head-up movement.

Evidence for the in-air criteria: the candidate’s helmet footage and/or video from within the group, paired with the candidate’s talk-through of their decision process (the flags they counted, the pattern they chose and why, what they saw at each turn and at breakoff); a GPS flight trace is welcome planned-versus-flown evidence where the candidate has access to one, but is not required.

Required equipment: visual altimeter, functioning audible set to the briefed profile (a second audible, or a deliberate raised-alarm system for the last turn, is recommended for leaders —), movement-suitable gear; AAD recommended. Conditions within every participant’s cleared limits, an assessment jump is never the place to stack flags.

Assessor: an experienced movement-jump leader or freefly coach current in leading movement jumps, using the published FFP-AN301 checklist (Satisfactory / Not Yet Satisfactory per criterion; unit result Competent / Not Yet Competent).

Coaching priorities

Deliver in the project’s priority order: Safety → Fun → Learning (curriculum Part A0). In a leader course the stakes double, the candidate is learning to hold that order for other people: “when we take responsibility for our own lives that’s one thing, but when we take responsibility for a group that’s a whole other thing”.

The non-compensable safety criteria protect the group; the fun is a group that stays tight, on level, and lands back on the DZ grinning, and a well-designed plan B is itself permission to enjoy the sky (“when was the last time you skydived and actually took a minute to be like, I’m skydiving, I’m in the sky?”,); debriefs end on a win with one improvement focus, and model the debrief standard the candidate will run for their own groups.

RPL evidence set

For experienced movement-jump leaders entering at level, the following alternative evidence is suggested in place of the full jump series:

• Logbook evidencing a substantial tracking/angles history including documented lead jumps (300+ tracking/angles jumps is a common contextual benchmark, not a gate).
• An existing leader approval, e.g. a drop zone safety officer approval under the APF Operational Regulations, a Spaceland-style approved-leader listing, or an equivalent DZ evaluation.
• A video and/or GPS portfolio of at least 3 led jumps showing planned-versus-flown flight paths and breakoff structure, or led-jump footage with a talk-through of the plan and decisions where no traces exist.
• A reference from a drop zone safety officer, S&TA, chief instructor or equivalent who has seen the candidate lead.
• Plus one full challenge assessment cycle (plan → brief → lead → breakoff → landing accountability → debrief) against the complete FFP-AN301 checklist.
  • Safety-critical criteria are always assessed live, never credited from history alone.

Sources