AN401 Coach
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Angles · Mastery · The brief
Angles 401
Organise large movement groups
Organising large movement groups, and the two-leader big-way angle.
What this unit covers
This unit covers the organiser's half of the Angles 400 mastery tier: the craft of running large movement groups safely, up to and including the big-way angle. The tier's flying half, mixed-orientation angles, is its sibling unit, FFP-AN402.
One course, one job: this card is the organiser's. The big-way angle. A big-way angle is a full-load jump: a guide of a 12–17-way, a whole Caravan load. It is flown with two qualified angle leaders, each leading half the formation (the project's coaching doctrine).
The rest of it
The load-bearing safety architecture is a two-stage split breakoff (detailed in Element 4). The big-way sits on the organiser competency: planning lanes and airspace across a whole load, coordinating leader-to-leader, briefing and leading a group, and running the debrief and the leader pipeline afterwards.
The umbrella responsibility is the Leading Workshop's one-liner: "bring everybody safely to the ground, preferably to the landing area". Every flight pattern serves two objectives:
Avoid every other group's line of flight; and.
Get every group home. Applies to experienced movement leaders competent at FFP-AN302 standard who take responsibility for a movement day, camp or event. Every angle group in this unit is a led group. The active leader flies belly-to-earth, always, back-flying is a follower skill in slot, never a leading position. Flyers learning angles join only with a trained/approved leader. On a two-leader big-way, both leaders are on the belly; the split hands each half to a belly leader, never to a back-flyer.
In early 2015 a chief-instructor commentary on an angle collision called explicitly for a mandatory tracking/movement prerequisite before angle dives, and for a movement component to be added to the Freefly Crest.
It described angle flying as "a new dynamic and dangerous discipline with little checks in place" (ASM 74 p.33).
At the May 2015 APF Annual Conference the Freefly workshop agreed to write APF-wide Angles/Atmo/Tracking guidelines, and to first define the terms (ASM 76 pp.25–27). The eventual product, the Freefly and Angles Guide (APF006, Aug 2023), arrived roughly eight years later and remains educational, not a training table. The organiser this unit produces is who carries structured movement-jump practice at a drop zone in the absence of a national one. Environment: sky only. Organising exercises navigation, jump run, airspace and breakoff, none of which exist in the tunnel. Supervision: enter as co-organiser alongside an established organiser, then organise independently under DZ oversight. The last stage is developing and evaluating other leaders. Mastery tier: there is no sign-off. Completion is a milestone recognising organising and big-way capability, not a permission to lead, organise or approve any jump.
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.
3.4
Safety critical
Hold the assigned lane, heading within ±45° of the planned leg. Never turn the group back toward jump run, or into another group's declared airspace. Every other group on the load planned its day around the line you published (USPA SIM 4-7.D).
Can you hold an assigned lane and heading, never turning the group back toward jump run or into another group’s declared airspace?
3.6
Safety critical
If a flyer leaves the plan or corks out, continue the plan, never chase. The group follows the leader, so a chase drags everyone into the hazard and leaves nobody accounted for (APF006 Part 4 recovery doctrine).
If a flyer leaves the plan or corks out, do you continue the plan rather than chase them?
5.1
Safety critical
Lead a big-way angle with a second qualified leader, each leading half the load. Both leaders fly belly. Coordinate the two halves in the air, and hand each half cleanly into its own chunk at the stage-one split (the project's coaching doctrine; see 4.6).
Have you led half a big-way angle alongside a second qualified leader, both on belly, handing each half cleanly into the breakoff?
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
3.4
Hold the assigned lane, heading within ±45° of the planned leg. Never turn the group back toward jump run, or into another group's declared airspace. Every other group on the load planned its day around the line you published (USPA SIM 4-7.D).
Can you hold an assigned lane and heading, never turning the group back toward jump run or into another group’s declared airspace?
3.6
If a flyer leaves the plan or corks out, continue the plan, never chase. The group follows the leader, so a chase drags everyone into the hazard and leaves nobody accounted for (APF006 Part 4 recovery doctrine).
If a flyer leaves the plan or corks out, do you continue the plan rather than chase them?
5.1
Lead a big-way angle with a second qualified leader, each leading half the load. Both leaders fly belly. Coordinate the two halves in the air, and hand each half cleanly into its own chunk at the stage-one split (the project's coaching doctrine; see 4.6).
Have you led half a big-way angle alongside a second qualified leader, both on belly, handing each half cleanly into the breakoff?
Everything this unit says about breakoff and deployment
1.6
Design each group's breakoff before the jump:
1.7
For a big-way angle (12–17-way), plan the two-stage split breakoff (Element 4.6) as the primary safety architecture. Assign the two leaders and split the load into two leader-owned halves. Confirm every participant knows which leader they follow through the split (the project's coaching doctrine).
1.8
For a single-leader angle, treat 10–12 people as the practical ceiling. This is a high-risk jump: brief a raised breakoff of 6,000 ft or higher, and move to the two-leader big-way structure past this size rather than fanning one large single-leader group (the project's coaching doctrine).
1.9
For a head-up angle group, raise the breakoff floor, minimum 6,000 ft, and higher for larger groups. A head-up breakoff buys almost no separation, and rotating to head-first costs altitude (Carlton; the project's coaching doctrine; and see the head-up-angle breakoff item in Knowledge evidence).
4.1
Complete the last turn by ~7,000–7,500 ft. Settle the group straight, together and calm well before breakoff. Never break off in or just out of a turn: "that's where the collisions happen".
4.2
Initiate breakoff at the briefed altitude, leading straight ahead, fast and efficient, as the group's reference line. Never stop, flare out or turn in place. A leader who kills their speed is a standing target, and a group without a reference line is "just floating in the sky" (APF006 s5.10).
4.3
Monitor the fan through your own breakoff:
4.4
Deploy at the planned altitude after clearing airspace in all directions, ahead, behind, above, below and beside, always assuming somebody is there. The one time they are, you want to be prepared (Austin, "pulling early is not a breakoff").
4.6
For a big-way angle, run the two-stage split breakoff (the project's coaching doctrine):
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
Assessment on genuine movement operations at a drop zone running movement jumps, real multi-group loads for the multi-group evidence items, and a real big-way (or the largest two-leader split the DZ can safely field) for the big-way evidence item. Tunnel evidence is not accepted for any criterion.
Sky jumps from a recommended 13,000 ft or higher where available (larger groups need working time; adjust locally). Evidence:
Footage of assessed jumps (leader-flown or helmet-mounted), with the candidate talking the assessor through their planning and in-air decisions.
A photographed copy of each assessed load's published flight plan (board or map).
GPS traces where the candidate has access to a GPS. Required equipment: visual altimeter, functioning audible (a second recommended), AAD recommended, movement-suitable gear. Conditions within the DZ's briefed limits, spanning the wind range in the evidence. Avoid assessing on the last loads of the day (off-landing recovery in fading light). Assessor: an experienced movement-jump organiser current at this scale, using the published FFP-AN401 checklist (Satisfactory / Not Yet Satisfactory per criterion). Completion is recorded as a Mastery milestone only. It confers no privilege: leader and organiser approval remain with the drop zone safety officer/S&TA under local rules, and may be revoked at any time.
Performance evidence
Ability evidenced across a suggested 12 movement loads organised and led by the candidate, a guide to how long the organiser's craft might take to evidence, scaled to the local scene. Include:
at least 4 loads planned and flown carrying two movement groups, groups of a guide 6-way or larger.
at least 1 big-way angle (12–17-way) planned and flown with a co-leader and a two-stage split breakoff, or, where a full-load big-way is not available locally, the largest two-leader split the DZ can safely field, with the two-stage split flown as briefed.
At least two different days/wind conditions and two different jump-run situations.
at least 2 consecutive organised operations meeting all criteria without assistance from a supervising organiser.
Involvement in developing at least one newer leader, homework set and defended, or a briefing or led jump observed with structured feedback.
Where no leader-candidate is available locally, a structured scenario-and-footage review with a developing leader is an acceptable substitute. Recommended currency window: 12 months. Tunnel time evidences nothing in this unit.
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). The organiser holds that order for the whole load, not just their own group. The non-compensable criteria protect every group sharing the sky, and the organiser never trades them for throughput.
Fun keeps the operation running: plans published without drama, groups landing back on the DZ grinning and re-manifesting, and plan B jumps designed as good skydives in their own right ("when was the last time you skydived and actually took a minute to be like, I'm skydiving, I'm in the sky?").
Fun is also a safety mechanism at organiser scale. Leaders and flyers who enjoy the organised system stay inside it, rather than jumping unbriefed and unled. The candidate ends each debrief on a win with one improvement focus, and models that standard for the leaders they are developing.
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.
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This card is a summary. The full Angles 401 unit carries the reasoning, the sources and everything left off here. All briefing cards.