Skip to content
HU401 Flyer
Coach card Full unit

Swipe sideways, or tap the dots. 4 screens.

Head Up · Mastery · The jump

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 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.

3.3
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 · 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

3.8
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.

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.

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).
5.2
Analyse the formation video to locate own slot's contribution to the build, or the cause of any failure to build.
5.3
Identify one correction to carry into the next attempt's plan.
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.

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.

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