Angles 402

Fly head-up angles

Angle jumps flown head-up, and the transition to head-first before breakoff.

What the course is about

You'll learn to hold an angle slot head-up in a small group led from the belly, and to transition to head-first early enough that the breakoff still gives the group separation.

Angles 202 comes first, because you need to hold an angle slot on belly and back, and Head-Up 102, because you need to move a sit where you want it. In Australia, larger freefly formation jumps need the appropriate Freefly Crest (the threshold is in the regulations panel below).

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.

3.1 Safety critical

Hold slot through orientation changes: change orientation without changing level or closing speed, bridging the fall-rate difference with speed range rather than letting the transition scatter the group (the project's coaching doctrine, the participant speed-range skill).

Can you fly the back-fly slot on a normal angle and transition to head up on the leader’s key, without coming off level or separating laterally from the group?

3.2

Fly each transition on the leader's key, staying on the line of flight, transition head-up to head-first using a team layout around a centre point, never the in-place layout Carlton names as the worst option (Carlton; the project's coaching doctrine).

After a transition to head up, can you keep moving on the line of flight? That is, can you fly head up in a straight line?

3.6

Control pitch and level changes while moving head-up, holding the briefed slot through them (the participant speed-range skill of 3.1, applied through the line's pitch changes).

Can you control both pitch and level changes in head-up movement whilst staying in slot?

4.1 Safety critical

Be head-first and moving by the briefed window (~6,000–7,000 ft depending on the group and its size) so the track has spent its acceleration lag before the breakoff floor arrives (Carlton, the 1,500–2,000 ft lag; the project's coaching doctrine; the FFP head-up-angle breakoff guides, 6,000 ft minimum and 6,500 ft for larger groups).

Are you lifting your breakoff in head up, starting at about 6,000 to 7,000 feet depending on the group and its size, so you are head first and moving by the standard 5,500 foot breakoff?

Screen 3 · Safety and altitudes

Safety and altitudes

Everything here is a recommendation with a reason behind it. The drop zone you are jumping at, and your own limits on the day, decide what happens.

Safety-critical items on the short list

3.1

Can you fly the back-fly slot on a normal angle and transition to head up on the leader’s key, without coming off level or separating laterally from the group?

4.1

Are you lifting your breakoff in head up, starting at about 6,000 to 7,000 feet depending on the group and its size, so you are head first and moving by the standard 5,500 foot breakoff?

Everything this course says about breakoff and deployment

1.4

Set the breakoff to the raised head-up floors, minimum 6,000 ft, 6,500 ft for a larger group, with the head-first conversion initiated by ~6,500–7,000 ft (Carlton). These sit above the ordinary angle guides of 5,000 ft up to a 4-way and 5,500 ft for five or more, because a head-up breakoff does not produce the separation a head-first one does. Keep at least 1,000 ft between breakoff and planned deployment (mandatory in Australia, the APF Operational Regulations) (the project's coaching doctrine breakoff standards; FFP-AN301 knowledge evidence).

4.2

Initiate breakoff at the briefed altitude in the briefed fan, each flyer tracking in a head-first orientation, peeling no more than ~90°, never turning back toward jump run (APF006 §5.10; the project's coaching doctrine breakoff standards).

4.3

Deploy at the planned altitude after visually clearing the airspace in all directions, always assuming somebody is there (APF006 §3.3).

The altitudes here are the guides this site recommends, with the reasons on the full course page. Where the drop zone briefs something different, fly what the drop zone briefs.

Screen 4 · After the jump

After the jump

From the course's closing section, review.

5.1

Debrief against video to the protocol: participants first, the whole video once through, safety points first, end on a win.

5.2

Locate every fall-rate excursion at a transition and attribute it, key timing, speed range, or transition mechanics, and name one correction to train next.

5.3

Log the jump naming the unit, the head-up phases and transitions flown, and the next focus.

One fault, one correction

Before the video, and before anyone else speaks, name the one fault from the jump and the one thing you will change on the next jump. Keep it to one of each, so you have one clear thing to 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

You can record the jump yourself, because your own read of your flying is worth keeping. A record counts as verified once a coach signs it.

Your notes for this course

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This card is a summary. The full Angles 402 course page carries the reasoning, the sources and everything left off here. All briefing cards.