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HU101 Coach
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Head Up · Stability · The brief

Head-Up 101

Fly a stable sit

A stable, neutral sit you can hold and turn in.

What this unit covers

- Covers establishing and holding a stable, neutral head-up sit as an individual skill. The unit's scope: sit exits.
The all-90° neutral geometry.
The rest of it
Heading holds in the neutral sit.
Fall-rate control across the head-up ladder (knee-fly → sit → stag → stand).
Turns initiated from the arms, the legs, or both together.
The recovery loop drills (front and back loop).
The altitude-check discipline.
And head-up breakoff discipline. Head-up is generally the first step in the vertical aspect of freeflying, with speeds of roughly 220–260 km/h (APF006 §6.1). Applies to flyers who have completed Freefly 100 (back-fly control and the vertical recovery position). Environment: sky, with tunnel drills as preparation and as an evidence route for individual position work (IBA Static Level 3 equivalents). Supervision: coached. In the tunnel the coach holds the flyer or flies as the reference; on sky jumps the coach is the in-air reference. Supervision fades to solo consolidation jumps flown under the Freefly 100 solo protocols (working heading 90° to jump run, two functioning audibles, the static-turn drift check). The protocols carry a strong recommendation against solo stand-up flying, a stand can generate large horizontal movement that a flyer with no reference cannot detect.

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
Maintain heading ±45° (guide) for 10 seconds in the neutral sit.

Can you hold a neutral sit on heading, within about a quadrant, for ten seconds?

3.5
Move one rung at a time along the fall-rate ladder knee-fly → sit → stag, holding each rung stable for 3 seconds with even, symmetrical pressure before moving on.

Can you move a rung at a time through knee-fly, sit and stag, holding each for three seconds before moving on?

3.7
Perform a 360° turn in each direction, stopping within ±45° of the reference heading. A sit turn may be initiated from the arms, from the legs, or from both together; demonstrate at least two of the three, state which was used, and note that combining the two is generally the fastest way to turn.

Can you turn 360 degrees in each direction and stop within about a quadrant of where you started?

3.9 Safety critical
Execute the vertical recovery position immediately on any fallout or loss of control, resuming drills only once stable and on heading.

On any fallout or loss of control, do you go to the vertical recovery position straight away and only start work again once stable?

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

3.9
Execute the vertical recovery position immediately on any fallout or loss of control, resuming drills only once stable and on heading.

On any fallout or loss of control, do you go to the vertical recovery position straight away and only start work again once stable?

Everything this unit says about breakoff and deployment

1.4
State the altitude for ending head-up work (breakoff guide: 5,500 ft minimum for head-up jumps) and the planned deployment altitude.
2.2
Verify audible altimeter(s) set and functioning. Two functioning audibles should be regarded as mandatory best practice before any solo freefly: an audible is a hidden safety-critical device that can fail silently, and where a group's breakoff gives you altitude redundancy, a soloist has none.
4.1
Initiate breakoff at the briefed altitude (within −0/+300 ft), ending all head-up work.
4.2
End the jump per the briefed protocol. On a coached/group jump: transition to belly, slow to belly-fall speeds and track 90° from jump run while checking airspace above, below and behind. On a solo consolidation jump: end the work without tracking, turn 90°, pause, recover to back-fly, slow down, then transition to a belly orientation, dissipating speed over at least 1,000 ft before deployment (FFP-F100 solo protocol). A soloist's movement risks are already the dominant hazard; movement at breakoff belongs in formation jumps, where it is practised and needed.
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, helmet-mounted or ground-to-air; tunnel video for tunnel-evidenced components; candidate identifiable).
Required equipment: visual altimeter, functioning audible (two, the solo best practice, when assessed on a solo jump), hard helmet, freefly-suitable gear per the FFP-F100 gear standard. Conditions within the candidate's cleared limits.
Assessor: a freefly coach current in head-up coaching; tunnel components may be evidenced under an IBA-rated (or equivalent) instructor.
Assessment is against the published FFP-HU101 checklist, each criterion marked Satisfactory / Not Yet Satisfactory. Declare shoulder history before vertical work. Vertical body positions and their transitions load the shoulder joint, and the Australian record carries serious cases from the sit-to-head-down transition specifically: a shoulder dislocation that prevented the flyer reaching the BOC (ASM 56 p.74) and torn shoulder ligaments (ASM 83 p.25).
A candidate with a history of shoulder dislocation, instability or reconstruction should raise it with the coach before vertical work, so arm position and the recovery sequence can be adjusted and medical clearance sought where appropriate. A shoulder that cannot reach the BOC is a deployment failure.

Performance evidence

Ability evidenced across a suggested guide of 8 dedicated head-up jumps. The number is a guide to how long the unit usually takes; competency, not jump counts, is the standard. Recommended shape: coached jumps alternating with solo consolidation jumps.
Consolidation time lets a skill assimilate between coached inputs. The flyer flies the solo jumps under the F100 solo protocols (working heading, two audibles, drift check), because a soloist gives up the redundancy and reference a group provides.
Tunnel time can substitute for up to three of the skill-development jumps (guide: ~15 minutes of coached static head-up tunnel time on the equivalent drills per substituted jump), but not for the sky validation jumps.
Evidence should span at least two different days/conditions, including two consecutive sky jumps meeting all criteria without coach assistance or prompts, 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 bold safety criteria to the best-practice standard described above. Design the session to be enjoyable: participants choose this expensive hobby, and enjoyment sustains both the student and the sport.
Set one declared objective per jump to keep cognitive load light, and end debriefs on a win with one improvement focus (criterion 5.3). Physical preparation (era coaching wisdom). Head-up flying makes a sustained demand on the quads and the sit endurance to hold a neutral position through a full working block.
Tunnel blocks run up to ~2 minutes, so the conditioning that helps is isometric holds matched to that length.
Period Australian coaching (Tracey Lane) recommended, position-specific for head-up: isometric wall-sits held up to ~2 minutes to match a tunnel block, pressing through the heels to load the quads and spare the knees; single-leg balance work for asymmetric docks; and hamstring bridges for back-fly (the recovery position) (ASM 79 pp.28–29).
Offer it as optional preparation a flyer can do between jump days.

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 101 unit carries the reasoning, the sources and everything left off here. All briefing cards.