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HU401 Coach
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Head Up · Mastery · The brief

Head-Up 401

Fly head-up big-ways

Head-up big-ways: arriving on level, quietly, and aborting clear.

What this unit covers

Covers flying an assigned slot in engineered head-up formations of around 8-way and larger (a guide, above the FFP-HU301 group scope) at organised big-way camps, events and record attempts.
The method is the build method proven on the first Australian head-up records (15-way, then 16-way, Skydive Oz Moruya, 2019): a linked 3–4-way base launched from inside the aircraft, divers transitioning to head-up on level before approaching, designated break-ins expanding the base, and wacker lines built off it.
The rest of it
A "wacker" is an outer-ring flyer who docks last on the outside of a big-way round, a US big-way term used in the ASM coverage of the Australian records (ASM 96 pp.40–41). Applies to flyers competent in head-up group flying who are ready to work inside someone else's engineering. Environment: sky.
Tunnel head-up formation work is preparation and calibration only (an unofficial 17-way indoor HU formation has been built, ASM 96 p.19). Supervision: the flyer flies every jump under a big-way organiser within a coached event.
The organiser assigns a simple slot at first; supervision fades as the flyer becomes trusted across the role families (base, diver/break-in, wacker) without slot-level supervision. **This is a Mastery-tier unit: there is no sign-off.
Completion is a milestone recognising big-way readiness, it is not a permission, and it does not authorise 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.

3.3
Transition to head-up on level, arresting all closure before starting the approach (divers; the 2019 record method, "transitioning on level to head up before building", ASM 96 pp.40–41).

Can you transition to head up on level and stop all your closure before you start the approach?

3.6
Take grips only after a pause in the slot with closure arrested, without loading the formation ("everyone making sure they paused before picking up the grips", ASM 96 pp.40–41).

Do you pause in the slot with closure arrested before you take grips, rather than taking them on the way in?

3.8 Safety critical
Fly the briefed abort on any instability or orientation loss: establishing back-fly, clearing off the formation's line, and not re-approaching (corking decelerates a flyer from ~175+ mph to ~120 mph, a collision hazard for anyone above the formation).

On any instability near a formation, do you fly the briefed abort, get onto your back, clear the formation’s line, and stay out?

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

3.8
Fly the briefed abort on any instability or orientation loss: establishing back-fly, clearing off the formation's line, and not re-approaching (corking decelerates a flyer from ~175+ mph to ~120 mph, a collision hazard for anyone above the formation).

On any instability near a formation, do you fly the briefed abort, get onto your back, clear the formation’s line, and stay out?

Everything this unit says about breakoff and deployment

1.3
State the staged breakoff plan: own wave, its altitude and assigned radial, and the deployment altitude. Guides: waves elevated with group size, e.g., first wave ≥6,000 ft and open by 4,500 ft, with ≥1,000 ft from own breakoff to deployment (cf. the elevated floors used for coached freefly display groups, ASM 96 p.15). Head-up big-way separation planning needs to be more conservative than head-down: gaining lateral separation from a head-up breakoff is inefficient, so at 10-way and larger the breakoff plan is the organiser's risk decision, higher floors are worth considering.
2.2
Complete a freefly-specific gear check: pin and handle protection for the gripped exit and aircraft stack-up, genuinely tight BOC (premature pilot-chute deployment is a documented head-up hazard, ASM 96 p.33), two audibles set to the briefed altitudes, AAD on.
3.7
Hold the slot quietly, level within a head height, grips soft, inputs minimal, while monitoring the build and the traffic in own sector until the key or breakoff.
4.1
Initiate breakoff with own wave at the briefed altitude (within −0/+300 ft), turning onto the assigned radial.
4.3
Transition to belly, washing off vertical speed and checking airspace before deployment (deployment at freefly speeds drives the hard-opening/line-twist incident class, ASM 109 p.69).
4.4
Deploy at the planned altitude, never above the formation or another group (ASM 112 p.88).
5.1
Debrief own jump against the per-jumper report card covering the 11 briefed areas of the jump, climbouts, quietness, presentation and breakoff among them; full card under Assessment conditions, comparing self-assessment against the organiser's card (Malchiodi debrief instrument, 2019 Australian HU record, ASM 96 pp.40–41).
5.4
Log the jump with a written reflection naming the unit, the slot flown and the outcome (e.g., "FFP-HU401, diver slot, 12-way, build held to breakoff"), retaining the report card as evidence, the report-card cycle only compounds if it lands in the logbook.

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 head-up formation jumps of around 8-way or larger at an organised, coached event, a real group is required; tunnel evidence is preparatory only. Sky jumps from a recommended 13,000 ft minimum (higher with group size, at organiser discretion).
Video: a dedicated camera flyer above the formation plus candidate-identifiable footage, the report-card cycle and build diagnosis depend on it, so assessment without it is guesswork.
Equipment (best practice treated as standard at organised big-way events): visual altimeter, two functioning audibles, AAD, freefly-suitable gear with a genuinely tight BOC. Conditions within the event's briefed limits.
Assessor: an experienced head-up big-way organiser or freefly coach current in head-up big-way coaching, using the published FFP-HU401 checklist and the 11-area report card, each criterion marked Satisfactory / Not Yet Satisfactory.
The 11 report-card areas, in jump order: climbouts.
Exit timing.
Approach discipline.
Level control.
Slot fidelity.
Dock quality.
Quietness.
Presentation.
Breakoff (initiation, own wave, altitude, radial).
Breakoff execution (track, separation, transition, deployment).
Canopy pattern.
*Provenance (researched 2026-07-27): the original Malchiodi card was never published, ASM 96 (Hopwood, pp.40–41) gives only four example areas ("covering things like climbouts, quietness, presentation and breakoff"). The other seven are an FFP reconstruction, evidence-based against the same article's phase-by-phase account of the Moruya record coaching plus published big-way assessment decompositions:
Brown's Big-Way Basics.
Cooper-Jensen's Big-way Bites.
2014 52-way HUWR debrief language.
The original card exists on paper with the 17 record participants, several Moruya-local (Scott Hiscoe, Ben Cuttler, Jacob Mulder, Kyle Chick), or via Kim Hopwood/Focus or Malchiodi, and supersedes this reconstruction if obtained.* Completion is recorded as a Mastery milestone only: it is not a sign-off, confers no privilege, and is not a permission to jump in, organise or join any formation..

Performance evidence

- Ability evidenced across a suggested 12 coached head-up formation jumps at around 8-way or larger (a guide, scale with the local scene's group sizes), across at least two organised events or camps and at least two role families (e.g., base plus diver or wacker), including at least 3 consecutive jumps on which the candidate's slot built and held to breakoff without organiser intervention.
With a completed 11-area report card on file for every assessed jump, within a recommended 12-month currency window. The jump count is a guide to how long readiness typically takes. Competency decides, not numbers, and camps and weather will stretch the calendar. Tunnel head-up formation time may evidence quietness and presentation development but substitutes for no assessment jump: it exercises no climbout, hill, altitude or breakoff (cf. altitude-awareness decay after tunnel blocks, ASM 96 p.33).

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 safety criteria to the bold standard above: never trade breakoff, deployment or abort discipline for a completed formation.
Brief and debrief a flown abort or a stand-down under criterion 1.5 as a correct decision, not a failure, even on a jump that took a whole load to build. Big-way debriefs run the report-card cycle without blame: safety points first, then celebrate what worked, then one improvement focus carried into the next attempt.

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