AN401 Flyer

Swipe sideways, or tap the dots. 4 screens.

Angles · Mastery · The jump

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 you are watched on

What you are watched on

The same short list a coach ticks, in the same words. Nothing is hidden from you.

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 · Safety and altitudes

Safety and altitudes

Everything here is a recommendation with a reason behind it, not a rule. The drop zone you are jumping at, and your own limits on the day, decide what actually happens.

Safety-critical criteria on the short list

3.4

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, do you continue the plan rather than chase them?

5.1

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):

Altitudes here are the guides this curriculum recommends and argues for. Where the drop zone briefs something different, the drop zone is what you fly.

Screen 4 · After the jump

After the jump

From this unit's own closing element, review the operation.

6.1

Debrief each group to the protocol:

6.2

Compare plan against flown: draw what you planned, draw what you think you flew, and, if you have access to a GPS, compare all three. The gaps are the navigation curriculum for the next jump.

6.3

Develop the DZ's next leaders:

6.4

Feed the day back into the DZ's system, lane assignments, per-load limits, the leader list, briefing culture. Stand down or re-train where the flying showed it, and remember that half the organiser's craft is knowing when not to lead (Skydive Arizona off-landing bar).

One fault, one correction

Before the video, before anyone else speaks: name the single thing that went wrong, and the single thing you will do differently next jump. One of each. A list of six is a list you will not fly.

Write them into your notes at the bottom of this card, and they will be here next time you open it.

Record this jump

Most records are the flyer's own, and that is the point: your own read of your own flying is worth keeping. A record only counts as verified once a coach signs it.

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.

Notes need JavaScript, because they are stored in this browser rather than on a server. The card itself works without it.

This card is a summary. The full Angles 401 unit carries the reasoning, the sources and everything left off here. All briefing cards.